KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 


Well,  I  have  quite  a  stock  of  shrapnel  and  liquid  fire  for  the 
rear  line  of  the  Germans. 


—  2-433  ¥07 


KEEPING  UP  WITH 
WILLIAM 

In  Which  the  Honorable  Socrates  Potter  Talks 

of  the  Relative  Merits  of  Sense 

Common  and  Preferred 


By 

IRVING  BACHELLER 

•I 

Author  of  Keeping  Up  With  Lizzie.  The  Light 
in  the  Gearing.  Etc. 


With  Cartoons  by 
GAAR  WILLIAMS 


NDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


COPTRIOHT  1918 

IRVING  BACHELLER 


TO  THE  CHILDREN  OF  FRANCE  AND 
BELGIUM  — MADE  FATHERLESS  BY 
WILLIAMISM-WHOSE  WRONGS  HAVE 
ENLISTED  THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 
AGAINST  THE  MISLED  HOSTS  OF  GER- 
MANY, I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK  AND 
THE  PROCEEDS  OF  ITS  SALE. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    WHICH  OPENS  FIBE  ON  THE  EXACTING 

INDUSTRY  OF  SUPERING       ....      1 

II  WHICH  TEACHES  THAT  ONE  SHOULD 
NEVER  HITCH  His  CONSCIENCE  TO  A 
POST  AS  IF  IT  WERE  A  NANNY-GOAT 
AND  Go  OFF  AND  LEAVE  IT  ...  28 

III  WHICH  PRESENTS    THE  STORY  OF  THE 

SMOTHERED  SON 55 

IV  WHICH  HANDS  Our  SENSE  COMMON  TO 

THE  SUPERERS  IN  AMERICA         ...      62 

V  WHICH  DROPS  A  FEW  ROUNDS  OF  SHRAP- 
NEL ON  THE  HUNS  IN  AMERICA  .  .  78 

VI    WHICH  Is  MOSTLY  FOR  THE  BOYS  OF  OUB 

ARMY  .  86 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 


Keeping  Up  With 
William 

CHAPTER  I 


The  new  year  of  1918  was  not  a 
month  old  the  day  I  went  up  to  Con- 
necticut to  see  the  Honorable  Socrates 
Potter.  I  found  the  famous  country 
lawyer  sitting  in  the  very  same  chair 
from  which,  seven  years  ago,  he  had 
told  me  the  story  of  keeping  up  with 
Lizzie.  His  feet  rested  peacefully  on  a 
table  in  front  of  him  as  he  sat  reading 
a  law  book.  Logs  were  burning  in  the 
fireplace.  A  spaniel  dog  lay  dozing  on 
a  rug  in  front  of  it.  What  a  delightful 
flavor  of  old  times  and  good  tobacco  was 
in  that  inner  office  of  his — with  its  por- 
traits of  Lincoln  and  his  war  cabinet, 
1 


KEEPING  UP  .WITH  WILLIAM 

of  Silas  Wright  and  Daniel  Webster  and 
Rufus  Choate  and  Charles  Sumner, 
with  its  old  rifle  and  powder  horn  hang- 
ing above  the  modest  mantel  and  its 
cases  of  worn  law  books!  Beyond  the 
closed  door  were  busy  clerks  and  click- 
ing typewriters,  for  Mr.  Potter's  busi- 
ness had  grown  to  large  proportions, 
but  here  was  peace  and  the  atmosphere 
of  deliberation.  There  was  never  any 
haste  in  this  small  factory  of  opinions. 

"Hello!  Have  you  come  for  another 
book?"  he  asked. 

"Always  looking  for  another  book," 
I  answered.  "It's  about  time  that  you 
got  into  this  big  fight  between  Democ- 
racy and — " 

"Deviltry,"  he  interrupted  with  a 
stern  look.  "By  thunder  I've  offered  to 
take  up  the  sword  but  they  say  I'm  too 
old  to  fight.  I  don't  believe  it.  My 
great  grandfather  fought  at  Lexington 
when  he  was  sixty-four." 

"You  can  do  more  good  with  some 
2 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

conversation  than  you  could  with  a 
sword  or  a  gun,"  I  urged.  "I've  come 
up  here  to  touch  the  button  and  now 
you're  expected  to  say  something  for 
the  boys  at  the  front  and  the  folks  at 
home.  Just  turn  your  search-light  on 
the  general  situation." 

"Well,  I  have  quite  a  stock  of  shrap- 
nel and  liquid  fire  for  the  rear  line  of 
the  Germans,"  he  began.  "My  search- 
light is  a  modest  kind  of  a  lantern  but 
we'll  see  what  we  can  do  with  it. 

"This  time  we'll  talk  on  the  subject 
of  keeping  up  with  William. 

"The  other  day,  in  the  rooms  of  the 
Connecticut  Historical  Society,  I  was 
reading  the  diary  of  one  Abigail  Foote 
written  in  1775.  This,  as  I  remember 
it,  was  an  average  day  in  her  life : 

Mended  mother's  hood,  set  a  red 

dye,    hetchelled   flax   with    Hannah, 

spun  four  pounds  of  whole  wool,  spun 

thread  for  harness  twine,  worked  on 

3 


KEEPING  UP  .WITH  WILLIAM 

a  cheese  basket,  read  a  sermon  of 
Doddridge's,  scoured  the  pewter, 
milked  the  cows,  carded  wool,  got  sup- 
per ready,  went  to  bed  at  nine. 

"I  wish  you  to  note  that  she  went  to 
bed  at  nine.  Do  you  think  that  a  mod- 
ern girl  would  knock  off  at  nine?  Not 
at  all.  She  sticks  to  her  task  until  mid- 
night and  even  longer.  Abigail  had 
only  to  be  an  ordinary  human  being 
with  nothing  to  do  but  work.  The  mod- 
ern girl  must  have  the  beauty  of  a  god- 
dess, the  grace  of  a  gazelle,  the  diges- 
tion of  an  ostrich,  the  endurance  of  a 
horse  and  the  remorse  of  a  human  being. 
It  is  a  large  contract. 

"We  are  all  familiar  with  the  diary 
of  a  modern  girl.  Its  average  day 
would  be  about  as  follows: 

Got  up.    Neck  felt  like  a  string  on 
a  toy  balloon.    Had  some  toast  and 
coffee.    Had  my  hair  dressed  and  nails 
4 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

manicured.  Put  a  new  ribbon  on  my 
dog  and  walked  him  around  the  block. 
Went  to  meeting  of  the  charity 
committee.  Learned  that  there  were 
many  people  out  of  work.  Went  to 
see  the  doctor  who  warned  me  about 
overeating  and  late  hours.  Same  old 
chestnut !  Lunched  with  Mabel.  Ate 
half  a  pound  of  chocolates  and  so 
much  cake  that  the  butler  had  a 
frightened  look.  Home  again. 
Dressed.  Went  with  mama  to  a  lec- 
ture on  the  insane.  Mama  woke  me 
at  five.  It  was  all  over.  Went  to 
Gladys's  tea.  Danced  half  an  hour. 
Home  again.  Dressed.  Spent  fifteen 
minutes  with  papa  and  my  dog. 
Went  with  Harry  and  mama  to 
Gwendolyn's  party.  Danced  until 
midnight.  Home  at  one.  Nearly 
frozen. 

"Talk  about  long  hours  and  poor  pay 
and  insufficient  clothing,  this  reminds 
5 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

one  of  the  story  of  Washington's  army; 
in  the  worst  winter  of  the  revolution. 

"Now,  both  of  these  girls  toiled. 

"The  one  in  productive  work  with  the 
wool  and  the  flax.  It  was  done  mostly 
for  the  comfort  of  others. 

"The  modern  girl  wears  herself  out 
supering.  Do  you  know  what  it  means 
to  super?  It  is  to  follow  the  exacting 
industry  of  being  superior." 

"Superior  to  what?"  I  asked. 

"To  productive  work,"  he  went  on. 
"Their  toil  is  all  in  the  service  of  them- 
selves and  in  pursuit  of  their  own 
pleasure. 

"That's  what's  the  matter  with  this 
old  earth.  For  many  years  more  than 
half  its  people  have  been  supering — • 
wasting  their  time  in  busy  idleness — 
on  the  high  road  to  deviltry.  You  don't 
have  to  think  twice  to  decide  that  it  is 
about  the  most  dangerous  of  all  crimes, 
my  friend,  because  it  is  the  straight 
way  to  all  crime.  It  leads  direct  to  de- 
6 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

ceit,  theft,  adultery  and  murder.  It 
kills  the  sense  of  brotherhood  in  the 
heart  of  man.  It  kills  the  spirit  of  De- 
mocracy. The  world  is  being  strafed 
for  it,  in  my  opinion. 

"Now  the  center  and  headquarters  of 
all  supering  is  Prussia — the  home  of  the 
superman — and  Bill  Hohenzollern,  the 
Godful,  is  the  head  and  front  of  the 
whole  push. 

"There  are  two  kinds  of  superiority 
- — real  and  assumed.  Real  superiority 
is  largely  unconscious  of  itself.  It  can 
never  be  inherited — there's  the  impor- 
tant fact  about  it.  You  will  recall  that 
there  are  only  three  cases  on  record  of 
a  great  father  begetting  a  great  son. 
The  son  is  apt  to  have  a  sense  of  inher- 
ited superiority.  It  destroys  everything 
worth  while  in  him. 

"Of  afl  the  defects  that  flesh  is  heir 

to,  a  sense  of  inherited  superiority  is 

the  most  deplorable.    It  is  worse  than 

insanity  or  idiocy  or  curvature  of  the 

7 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

spine.  There  are  millions  of  acres  of 
land  in  Europe  occupied  by  nothing  but 
a  sense  of  inherited  superiority;  there 
are  millions  of  hands  and  intellects  in 
Europe  occupied  by  nothing  but  a  sense 
of  inherited  superiority,  while  billions 
of  wealth  have  been  devoted  to  its  serv- 
ice and  embellishment.  A  man  who  has 
even  a  small  amount  of  it  needs  a  force 
of  porters  and  footmen  to  help  him  tote 
it  around,  and  a  guard  to  keep  watch 
for  fear  that  some  one  will  grab  his 
superiority  and  run  off  with  it  when 
his  back  is  turned. 

"A  full  equipment  of  inherited  super- 
iority, decorated  with  a  title,  a  special 
dialect,  a  lot  of  old  armor  and  univer- 
sity junk,  stuck  out  so  that  there  wasn't 
room  for  more  than  one  outfit  in  a 
township.  Most  of  the  bloodshed  has 
been  caused  by  the  blunders  or  the  hog- 
gishness  of  inherited  superiority.  It  is 
the  nursing  bottle  of  insanity  and  the 
Mellin's  Food  of  crime. 
8 


Now  hot  air  has  been  the  favorite  dissipation  of  kings.  James 
the  First  was  one  of  the  world's  greatest  consumers  of  hot 
air;  enough  to  put  him  into  business  with  the  Almighty.  To 
be  sure,  it  was  not  a  full  partnership.  It  was  no  absolute 
Hohenzollern  monopoly  of  mortal  participation. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"There  are  two  kinds  of  sense  in  men 
; — common  and  preferred,  plain  and 
fancy.  The  common  has  become  the 
great  asset  of  mankind;  the  preferred 
its  great  liability.  Our  forefathers  had 
large  holdings  of  the  common,  certain 
kings  and  their  favorites  of  the  pre- 
ferred. The  preferred  represented  an 
immense  bulk  of  inherited  superiority 
and  an  alleged  pipe  line  leading  from 
the  king's  throne  to  Paradise,  and  con- 
nected with  the  fount  of  every  blessing 
by  the  best  religious  plumbers.  It  al- 
ways drew  dividends,  whether  the  com- 
mon got  anything  or  not.  The  preferred 
holders  ran  the  plant  and  insisted  that 
they  held  a  first  mortgage  on  it.  When 
they  tried  to  foreclose  with  military 
power  to  back  them,  some  of  our  fore- 
fathers got  out. 

"We,  their  sons,  are  now  crossing  the 
seas  to  take  up  that  ancient  issue  be- 
tween sense  common  and  preferred  and 
to  determine  the  rights  of  each.  We 
9 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

are  fighting  for  the  foundations  of  De- 
mocracy— the  dictates  of  common  sense. 

"For  the  sake  of  saving  time,  I  hope 
you  will  grant  me  license  to  resort  to 
the  economy  of  slang.  A  man  might 
do  worse  these  days.  There  is  one 
great  destroyer  of  common  sense.  It  is 
hot  air.  I  remember  how  scared  of  it 
the  Yankees  used  to  be.  They  were 
most  economical  with  their  praise.  I 
never  heard  a  word  of  it  in  my  youth. 
It  came  to  me  after  some  travel  now 
and  then — never  to  my  face.  They 
knew  the  deadly  power  of  it — those 
Yankees. 

"Now  hot  air  has  been  the  favorite 
dissipation  of  kings.  James  the  First 
was  one  of  the  world's  great  consumers 
of  hot  air.  He  and  his  family  and 
friends  took  all  that  Great  Britain  could 
produce — never,  I  am  glad  to  say,  a 
large  amount,  but  enough  to  put  James 
into  business  with  the  Almighty.  To  be 
sure,  it  was  not  a  full  partnership.  It 
10 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

was  no  absolute  Hohenzollern  monopoly 
of  mortal  participation.  It  was  com- 
paratively modest,  but  it  was  enough 
to  outrage  the  common  sense  of  the 
English.  After  all,  divine  partnerships 
were  not  for  the  land  of  Fielding  and 
Smollett  and  Swift  and  Dickens  and 
Thackeray.  Too  much  humor  there. 
Too  much  liberty  of  the  tongue  and  pen. 
Too  great  a  gift  for  ridicule.  Where 
there  is  ridicule  there  can  be  no  self- 
appointed  counselors  of  God,  and  hand- 
made halos  of  divinity  find  their  way  to 
the  garbage  heap. 

"Now,  if  we  are  to  have  sound  com- 
mon sense,  we  must  have  humor,  and  if 
we  are  to  have  humor  we  must  have 
liberty.  There  can  be  no  crowned  or 
mitered  knave,  no  sacred,  fawning  idiot, 
who  is  immune  from  ridicule;  no  little 
tin  deities  who  can  safely  slash  you 
with  a  sword  unless  you  give  them  the 
whole  of  the  sidewalk.  Humor  would 
take  care  of  them;  not  the  exuberance 
11 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

that  is  born  in  the  wine-press  or  the 
beer-vat — humor  is  no  by-product  of 
the  brewery- — but  the  merriment  that 
comes  when  common  sense  has  been 
vindicated  by  ridicule. 

"Solemnity  is  often  wedded  to  Con- 
ceit, and  their  children  have  committed 
all  the  crimes  on  record.  You  may  al- 
ways look  for  the  devil  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  some  solemn  and  conceited 
ass  who  has  inherited  power  and  who, 
like  the  one  that  Balaam  rode,,  speaks  for 
the  Almighty.  So,  when  the  devil  came 
back,  he  steered  for  the  most  solemn 
and  perfect  ass  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
• — Bill  Hohenzollern. 

"In  his,  soul  the  devil  began  to  de- 
stroy the  common  sense  of  a  race  with 
the  atmosphere  of  hell — hot  air.  We 
have  seen  its  effect.  It  inflates  the  in- 
tellect. It  produces  the  pneumatic,  rub- 
ber brain — the  brain  that  keeps  its 
friends  busy  with  the  pump  of  adula- 
tion ;  the  brain  stretched  to  hold  its  con- 
12 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

ceit,  out  of  which  we  can  hear  the  hot 
air  leaking  in  streams  of  boastfulness. 
The  divine  afflatus  of  an  emperor  is  apt 
to  make  as  much  disturbance  as  a  leaky 
steam-pipe.  When  the  pumpers  cease 
because  they  are  weary,  it  becomes  irri- 
tated. Then  all  hands  to  the  pumps 
again.  Soon  there  is  no  illusion  of 
grandeur  too  absurd  to  be  real,  no  in- 
dictment of  idiotic  presumption  which 
it  is  unwilling  to  admit. 

"By  and  by  it  breaks  into  the  realm 
of  the  infinite  and  hastens  to  the  succor 
of  God,  for,  to  the  pneumatic  brain, 
God  is  slow  and  old-fashioned.  There- 
after it  infests  the  heavenly  throne  and 
seeks  to  turn  it  into  a  plant  for  the 
manufacture  of  improved  morals,  and, 
so  as  to  insure  their  popularity,  every 
agent  for  these  morals  is  to  carry  a 
sword  and  a  gun  and  a  license  to  use 
them.  The  alleged  improvement  con- 
sists in  taking  all  the  nots  out  of  the 
ten  commandments.  Nots  are  irritating 
13 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

to  certain  people  who  have  plans  for 
murder,  rape,  arson,  and  piracy. 

"Hohenzollern  and  Krupp  had  taken 
the  Lord  into  partnership  and  begun  to 
give  Him  lessons  in  efficiency.  More- 
over, they  were  not  to  be  free  lessons. 
The  lessons  were  to  be  paid  for,  but 
they  were  willing  to  give  Him  easy 
terms,  for  which  they  were  to  show  Him 
how  to  hasten  the  slow  process  of  evolu- 
tion. Evolution  was  hindered  and  de- 
layed by  sentiment  and  emotion. 

"Sentiment  and  emotion  were  a  need- 
less inheritance.  Hohenzollern  and 
Krupp  proposed  to  cut  them  out  of  life 
and  abolish  tears.  Tears  consumed  the 
time  and  strength  of  the  people.  They 
were  factors  of  inefficiency.  What  was 
the  use  of  crying  over  spilled  milk  and 
dead  people?  Tears  were  in  the  nature 
of  a  luxury.  The  poor  could  not  afford 
them.  Life  was  not  going  to  be  lived 
any  longer — it  was  to  be  conducted.  It 
was  to  be  a  kind  of  a  hurried  Cook's 
14 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

tour.  Nobody  would  have  to  think  or 
feel.  All  that  would  be  attended  to  by 
the  proper  official.  Life  was  to  be  re- 
duced to  a  merciless  iron  plan  like  that 
of  the  beehive — the  most  perfect  exam- 
ple of  efficiency  in  nature,  with  its  two 
purposes  of  storage  and  race  perpetua- 
tion. No  one  ever  saw  a  bee  shedding 
tears  or  worrying  about  the  murder  of  a 
drone. 

"The  ideal  of  Germany  was  to  be 
that  of  the  insect.  To  the  bee  there  is 
nothing  in  the  world  but  bees,  enemies, 
and  the  nectar  in  flowers;  to  the  Ger- 
man there  was  to  be  nothing  in  the 
world  but  Germans,  enemies,  and  loot. 
With  no  wall  of  pity  and  sentiment  be- 
tween them  and  other  races  they  could 
rain  showers  of  bursting  lyddite  on  the 
unsuspecting,  and  after  that  the  will  of 
the  Kaiser  and  God  would  be  respected. 
The  firm  would  prosper.  It  is  not  the 
first  time  that  conceit  and  Kultur  have 
hitched  their  wagon  to  infinity.  It  is 
15 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

the  old  scheme  of  Nero  and  Caligula — 
the  ancient  dream  of  the  pneumatic 
prince.  He  can  rule  a  great  nation,  but 
first  he  must  fool  it.  First  he  must 
induce  his  people  to  part  with  their 
common  sense  and  take  some  preferred 
— a  dangerous  quality  of  preferred. 
This  he  can  do  in  a  generation  by  the 
systematic  use  of  hot  air. 

"You  may  think  that  this  endangered 
the  national  morals,  but  do  not  be 
hasty.  The  morals  were  being  looked 
after. 

"Every  school,  every  pulpit,  every 
newspaper,  every  book,  became  a  pump- 
ing-station  for  hot  air  impregnated 
with  the  new  morals.  Poets,  philoso- 
phers, orators,  teachers,  statesmen,  ro- 
mancers, were  summoned  to  the  pumps. 
Rivers  of  beer  and  wine  flowed  into  the 
national  abdomen  and  were  converted 
into  mental  and  moral  flatulency. 

"For  thirty  years  Germany  had  been 
on  a  steady  dream  diet.  It  took  its 
16 


Every    school,    every    pulpit,    every    newspaper,    every    book, 
became  a   pumping-station  for  hot  air  impregnated  with  the 
new   morals.     Poets,    philosophers,   orators,   teachers,   states- 
men, romancers,  were  summoned  to  the  pumps. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

morning  hate  with  its  coffee  and  pray- 
ers, its  hourly  self -contentment  with  its 
toil,  its  evening  superiority  with  its 
beer  and  frankfurters.  History  was 
falsified,  philosophy  bribed,  religion 
coerced  and  corrupted,  conscience  si- 
lenced— at  first  by  sophistry,  then  by 
the  iron  hand.  Hot  air  was  blowing 
from  all  sides.  It  was  no  gentle  breeze. 
It  was  a  simoom,  a  tornado.  No  one 
could  stand  before  it — not  even  a  sturdy 
Liebknecht  or  an  unsullied  Harden. 

"Germany  was  inebriated  with  a 
sense  of  its  mental  grandeur  and  moral 
pulchritude.  Now  moral  pulchritude  is 
like  a  forest  flower.  It  can  not  stand 
the  fierce  glare  of  publicity;  you  can 
not  handle  it  as  you  would  handle  sau- 
sages and  dye  and  fertilizer.  Observe 
how  the  German  military  party  is  ad- 
vertising its  moral  pulchritude — one 
hundred  per  cent,  pure,  blue  ribbon, 
spurlos  versenkt,  honest-to-God  moral- 
ity!— the  kind  that  made  hell  famous. 
17 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

I  don't  blame  them  at  all.  How  would 
any  one  know  that  they  had  it  if  they 
did  not  advertise  it? 

"It  is  easy  to  accept  the  hot-air  treat- 
ment for  common  sense — easy  even  for 
sober-minded  men.  The  cocaine  habit 
is  not  more  swiftly  acquired  and  brings 
a  like  sense  of  comfort  and  exhilaration. 
Slowly  the  Germans  yielded  to  its  sweet 
Inducement.  They  began  to  believe  that 
they  were  supermen — the  chosen  peo- 
ple; they  thanked  God  that  they  were 
not  like  other  men.  Their  first  crime 
was  that  of  grabbing  everything  in  the 
heaven  of  holy  promise.  It  would  ap- 
pear that  those  clever  Prussians  had 
arranged  with  St.  Peter  for  all  the  re- 
served seats — nothing  but  standing 
room  left.  Heaven  was  to  be  a  place 
exclusively  for  the  lovers  of  frankfur- 
ters and  sauerkraut  and  Limburger 
cheese. 

"God  was  altogether  their  God.  Of 
course !  Was  He  not  a  member  of  the 
18 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

firm  of  Hohenzollern  &  Krupp?  And, 
being  so,  other  races  were  a  bore  and 
an  embarrassment.  Would  He  not 
gladly  be  rid  of  them?  Certainly. 
Other  races  were  God's  enemies,  and 
therefore  German  enemies.  So  it  be- 
came the  right  and  duty  of  the  Germans 
to  reach  out  and  possess  the  earth  and 
its  fulness.  The  day  had  arrived. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  world  but  Ger- 
mans and  enemies  and  loot. 

"Their  great  leader,  in  their  name, 
had  claimed  a  swinish  monopoly  of 
God's  favor.  His  was  not  the  conten- 
tion of  James  the  First,  that  all  true 
kings  enjoy  divine-right — oh,  not  at 
all!  Bill  had  grown  rather  husky  and 
had  got  his  feet  in  the  trough,  and  was 
going  to  crowd  the  others  out  of  it. 
He  was  the  one  and  only.  And  as  he 
crowded,  he  began  to  pray,  and  his 
prayers  came  out  of  lips  which  had  con- 
fessed robbery  and  violated  good  faith 
and  inspired  deeds  of  inhuman  fright- 
19 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

fulness.  His  prayers  were  therefore 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  hot  air 
aimed  at  the  ear  of  the  Almighty  and 
carrying  with  them  the  flavor  of  the 
swine-yard.  In  all  this  Church  and 
people  stood  by  him.  It  would  seem 
that  the  devil  had  taken  both  unto  a 
high  mountain  and  showed  them  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  their  glory, 
and  that  they  had  yielded  to  his  bland- 
ishments. 

"Now  the  thing  that  has  happened  to 
the  criminal  is  this.  In  one  way  or  an- 
other, he  loses  his  common  sense.  He 
ceases  to  see  things  in  their  just  rela- 
tions and  proportions.  The  difference 
between  right  and  wrong  dwindles  and 
disappears  from  his  vision.  He  con- 
vinces himself  that  he  has  a  right  to 
at  least  a  part  of  the  property  of  other 
people.  Often  he  acquires  a  comic 
sense  of  righteousness. 

"I  have  lately  been  in  the  devastated 
regions  of  northern  France.  I  have 
20 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

seen  whole  cities  of  no  strategic  value 
which  the  German  armies  had  destroyed 
by  dynamite  before  leaving  them  to  a 
silence  like  that  of  the  grave — the  slow- 
wrought  walls  of  old  cathedrals  and 
public  buildings  tumbled  into  hopeless 
ruin;  the  chateaux,  the  villas,  the  little 
houses  of  the  poor,  shaken  into  heaps  of 
moldering  rubbish.  And  I  see  in  it  a 
sign  of  that  greater  devastation  which 
covers  the  land  of  William  II — the  dev- 
astation of  the  spirit  of  the  German 
people;  for  where  is  that  moral  gran- 
deur of  which  Heine  and  Goethe  and 
Schiller  and  Luther  were  the  far-heard 
compelling  voices?  I  tell  you  it  has  all 
been  leveled  into  heaps  of  moldering 
rubbish — a  thousand  times  more  melan-* 
choly  than  any  in  France. 

"Behold  the  common  sense  of  Ger- 
many become  the  sense  that  is  common 
only  among  criminals!  The  sooner  we 
recognize  that,  the  better.  They  are 
really  burglars  in  this  great  house  of 
21 


.God  we  inhabit,  seeking  to  rob  it  of  its 
best  possessions — Hindenburglars !  In 
this  war  we  must  give  them  the  consid- 
eration due  a  burglar,  and  only  that. 
We  must  hit  them  how  and  where  we 
may.  We  are  bound  by  no  nice  regard 
for  fair  play.  We  must  kill  the  burglar 
or  the  burglar  will  kill  us. 

"When  I  went  away  to  the  battle- 
front,  a  friend  said  to  me: 

"  Try  to  learn  how  this  incredible 
thing  came  about  and  why  it  continues. 
That  is  what  every  one  wishes  to  know.' 

"Well,  hot  air  was  the  cause  of  it. 
Now  why  does  it  continue?  My  answer 
is,  bone-head  —  mostly  plumed  bone- 
head. 

"Think  of  those  diplomats  who  were 
twenty  years  in  Germany  and  yet  knew 
nothing  of  what  was  going  on  around 
them  and  of  its  implications!  You  say 
that  they  did  know,  and  that  they 
warned  their  peoples?  Well,  then,  you 
may  shift  the  bone-heads  on  to  other 
22 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

shoulders.  Think  of  the  diplomatic  fail- 
ures that  have  followed! 

"I  bow  my  head  to  the  people  of  Eng- 
land and  to  the  incomparable  valor  of 
her  armies  and  fleets.  My  friendly 
criticism  is  aimed  at  the  one  and  only 
point  in  which  she  could  be  said  to  re- 
semble Germany,  viz.,  in  a  certain  lim- 
ited encouragement  of  supermen. 

"Now,  if  the  last  three  years  have 
taught  us  anything,  it  is  this:  the  su- 
perman is  going  to  be  unsupered.  Con- 
sidering the  high  cost  of  up-keep  and 
continuous  adulation,  he  does  not  pay. 
He  is  in  the  nature  of  a  needless  tax 
upon  human  life  and  security.  His  mis- 
takes, even,  to  use  no  harsher  word, 
have  slaughtered  more  human  beings 
than  there  are  in  the  world.  The  born 
gentleman  and  professional  aristocrat, 
with  a  hot-air  receiver  on  his  name,  who 
lives  in  a  tower  of  inherited  superior- 
ity and  looks  down  at  life  through  hazy 
distance  with  a  telescope,  has  and  can 
23 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

have  no  common  sense.  He  is  a  good 
soldier,  he  knows  the  habits  of  the 
grouse  and  the  stag,  he  can  give  an  ad- 
mirable dinner,  he  understands  the  prin- 
ciples of  international  law,  but  when  in- 
ternational law  turns  into  international 
anarchy  he  is  not  big  enough  to  find  the 
way  of  common  sense  through  the  emer- 
gency. He  has  not  that  intimate  know- 
ledge of  human  nature  which  comes  only 
of  a  long  and  close  contact  with  human, 
beings.  Without  that  knowledge  he 
will  know  no  more  of  what  is  in  the 
other  fellow's  mind  and  the  bluff  that 
covers  it  in  a  critical  clash  of  wits  than 
a  baby  sucking  its  bottle  in  a  peram- 
bulator. He  fails,  and  the  cost  of  his 
failure  no  man  can  estimate.  He  stands 
discredited.  As  a  public  servant  he  is 
going  into  disuse  and  his  going  vindi- 
cates the  judgment  of  our  forefathers 
as  to  like  holders  of  sense  preferred. 

"Now  is  the  time  when  all  men  must 
choose  between  two  ideals:     That  of 
24 


'Behold  the  common  sense  of  Germany  become  the  sense  that 
is  common  only  among  criminals!  The  sooner  we  recognize 
that,  the  better.  They  are  really  burglars  in  this  great  house 
of  God  we  inhabit,  seeking  to  rob  it  of  its  best  possessions— 
Hindenburglars! 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

the  proud  and  merciless  heart  on  the 
one  hand,  that  of  the  humble  and  con- 
trite heart  on  the  other;  between  the 
Hun  and  the  Anglo-Saxon,  between 
evil  and  good.  Faced  by  such  an  issue, 
I  declare  myself  ready  to  lay  all  that  I 
have  or  may  have  on  the  old  altar  of  our 
common  faith. 

"My  friend,  be  of  good  cheer.  The 
God  of  our  Fathers  has  not  been  Kai- 
sered  or  Krupped  or  hurried  in  the 
least.  There  is  no  danger  that  Heaven 
will  be  Teutonized. 

The  shouting  and  the  tumult  dies — 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart — • 

Still  stands  Thine  ancient  sacrifice, 
An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 

Lord  God  of  hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 

Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget. 

"Lest  we  forget  the  innumerable  dead 
who  have  nobly  died,  and  the  host  of 
the  living  who  with  a  just  and  common 
25 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

sense  and  love  of  honor  have  sent  them 
forth  to  die.  Lest  we  forget  that  we 
and  our  allies  have  not  been  above  re- 
proach; that  there  were  signs  of  deca- 
dence among  us — in  the  growing  love 
of  ease  and  idleness,  in  the  tango  dance 
of  literature  and  lust,  in  the  exaltation 
of  pleasure,  in  a  very  definite  degenera- 
tion of  our  moral  fiber. 

"Lest  we  forget  that  our  spirit  is  be- 
ing purified  in  the  furnace  of  war  and 
the  shadow  of  death.  Do  you  remember 
the  protest  of  those  poilus  when  some 
unclean  plays  were  sent  to  the  battle 
front  for  their  entertainment? 

"  'We  are  not  pigs' — that  was  the 
message  they  sent  back. 

"Lest  we  forget  that  the  spirit  of  man 
has  been  lifted  up  out  of  the  mud  and 
dust  of  the  battle  lines,  out  of  the  body 
tortured  with  pain  and  weariness  and 
vermin,  out  of  the  close  companionship 
of  the  dead  into  high  association  on  the 
bloody  altar  of  liberty  and  sacrifice. 
26 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"Lest  we  forget  that  the  spirit  of  our 
own  boys  shall  be  thus  lifted  up,  and 
our  duty  to  put  our  house  in  order  and 
make  it  a  fit  place  for  them  to  live  in 
when  they  shall  have  returned  to  it  from 
battle-fields  swept,  as  a  soldier  has  writ- 
ten, by  the  cleansing  winds  of  God." 


CHAPTER  II 

WHICH  TEACHES  THAT  ONE  SHOULD  NEVER 

HITCH  HIS  CONSCIENCE  TO  A  POST  AS 

IF  IT   WERE   A  NANNY-GOAT  AND 

GO   OFF  AND  LEAVE   IT 

"Truth  is  a  great  teacher  but  she 
ofjten  quarrels  with  the  cook,"  said  Mr. 
Potter,  while  looking  at  his  watch. 

He  went  to  the  telephone  and  called 
his  home  and  presently  began  to  ad- 
dress his  wife  as  follows: 

"Hello,  Betsy !  Say,  don't  expect  me 
'til  I  come.  I'm  in  trouble.  A  feller 
came  in  here  and  started  the  war  all 
over  again  and  there's  no  tellin'  when 
it'll  end.  I  do  not  want  an  inconclusive 
peace." 

As  he  hung  up  the  telephone  his 
stenographer  came  in  to  say  good  night. 
Mr.  Potter  took  his  old  rifle  off  the 
wall,  dusted  it  with  a  desk  cloth  and 
said: 

28 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"My  great  grandfather  used  that  in 
the  battle  of  Lexington." 

He  squinted  down  its  long  barrel 
while  he  gave  these  instructions  to  his 
helper. 

"Joe,  send  down  to  The  Sign  of  the 
Flapjack,  nee  Child's,  and  order  corned 
beef  hash  and  poached  eggs  and  apple 
pie  and  coffee  for  two." 

He  turned  to  me  and  asked : 

"Any  amendments  to  propose  to  that 
ticket?" 

"None,"  I  answered. 

"Then  we  will  consider  it  elected. 
Have  the  table  spread  here  by  the  fire, 
if  you  please." 

He  filled  and  lighted  his  pipe,  settled 
down  in  an  easy  chair  and  began  again, 
with  his  gun  resting  across  his  knees: 

"The  superers  try  to  square  them- 
selves by  giving  to  the  poor.  It  doesn't 
work.  Often  we  do  more  harm  than 
good  by  giving  to  the  poor.  Kindness, 
sympathy,  loving  counsel  and  the  broth- 
29 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

erly  hand  can  accomplish  much.  But 
the  charity  of  cold  cash  is  a  question- 
able thing.  The  girl  who  knits  a  pair 
of  socks  accomplishes  a  larger  net  result 
to  the  good  than  the  one  that  gives  ten 
pairs  to  charity.  The  girl  who  did  the 
knitting  really  produced  something. 
She  had  made  the  world  better  off  by 
one  pair  of  socks.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  that.  The  girl  who  has  bought 
and  given  away  ten  pairs  has  produced 
nothing.  She  has  made  the  world  in 
general  no  better  off.  She  is  a  slacker. 
She  is  trying  to  make  her  money  do  her 
work  for  her. 

"The  time  has  come  when  the  world 
in  general  has  to  be  considered  by  each 
of  us.  Civilized  humanity  has  been 
compacted  into  a  unit.  It  is  threatened 
by  famine  and  tyranny.  All  the  money; 
there  is  can  not  save  us  from  these 
perils  unless  a  lot  of  people  get  busy 
who  are  now  doing  nothing  but  eat  and 
play.  Money  has  become  a  very  cheap 
30 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

and  vulgar  thing — almost  every  one  has 
money  these  days. 

"The  time  of  the  great  assessment 
has  come  and  the  Lord  God  is  taking  His 
inventory.  Everything  is  being  meas- 
ured and  valued;  even  your  usefulness, 
my  friend.  What  are  you  producing? 
Is  it  enough  to  feed  and  clothe  yourself 
and  family,  even?  Corn  and  potatoes 
and  wheat  and  wool  are  more  than 
money  these  days.  If  you  don't  help  to 
produce  them,  you  are,  more  or  less,  a 
dead  weight. 

"The  idle  lands  in  America  ought  to 
get  busy.  How?  The  rich  men  should 
begin  to  cultivate  them.  I  know  one 
such  man  who  is  growing  two  hundred 
and  fifty  acres  of  potatoes  in  Florida 
where  nothing  has  grown  before,  and  it 
is  estimated  his  yield  will  be  at  least 
fifty  thousand  bushels.  Now,  that  man 
is  doing  a  real  service  to  Democracy. 

"When  the  monster  of  war  is  devour- 
ing the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth  and 
31 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

stopping  the  labor  of  those  who  produce 
it,  there  is  only  one  remedy.  We  must 
increase  that  f ruitfulness  so  that  there 
shall  be  enough  to  feed  the  monster  and 
the  people  at  home.  If  this  is  to  be 
done,  every  one  must  work.  In  such  a 
situation,  the  idleness  of  the  able-bodied 
becomes  a  disgrace,  and  his  dinner  the 
food  of  remorse. 

"Get  busy.  I  do  not  mean  that  we 
should  never  play.  I  do  mean  that  every 
day  we  should  do  a  fair  day's  work  with 
our  hands  and  brain  for  the  good  of  the 
world  at  large. 

"The  war  has  established  two  brother- 
hoods, my  friend — that's  the  big  thing 
about  it.  A  brotherhood  of  democracy 
and  a  brotherhood  of  slaves. 

"This  brotherhood  of  slaves  has  been: 
created  by  the  leprous  soul  of  Bill 
Hohenzollern.  He  has  broken  down  the 
will  of  the  average  man  in  Germany  and 
established  his  own  in  place  of  it.  He 
has  yoked  his  people  with  the  slaves  of 
32 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

Turkey  and  Bulgaria,  and  with  them 
has  overawed  the  will  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarians,  mostly  a  decent  people. 
The  will  of  the  Kaiser  has  spread  over 
middle  Europe  like  a  plague.  The  name 
of  the  plague  is  Williamism.  We  have 
caught  it  in  America." 

"In  America!"  I  exclaimed. 

"In  America,"  Mr.  Potter  went  on. 
"The  quarantine  officer  has  been  bribed. 
He  has  left  the  door  open  and  the 
plague  has  come  in.  The  name  of  that 
officer  is  Human  Conscience.  William- 
ism  can  make  no  progress  save  through 
the  carelessness  or  neglect  of  the  human 
conscience. 

"Long  ago  the  German  people  turned 
over  their  consciences  to  the  Kaiser  and 
the  Bundesrath  with  a  license  to  use 
them  as  they  thought  best.  The  people 
said  to  themselves :  The  Kaiser  enjoys 
the  special  protection  and  favor  of  the 
Lord.  He  is  an  intimate  friend  with  a 
pull.  He  ought  to  be  able  to  make  a 
33 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

more  expert  use  of  our  consciences  than 
we  could  ourselves.  Therefore,  we  will 
appoint  him  our  representative  and 
proxy  at  the  Court  of  Heaven.  If  he 
and  his  friends  decide,  after  due  con- 
sultation with  God,  that  we  had  better 
violate  good  faith  and  break  our  trea- 
ties and  seize  the  property  of  other 
races  and  indulge  in  murder,  rape, 
arson  and  piracy,  we  will  do  it.  To  be 
sure  such  action  would  seem  to  be 
wrong,  but  that  is  only  because  we  are 
common  cattle.  We  are  the  best  herd 
of  common  cattle  there  is,  but  we  are 
not  supermen.  The  Bundesrath,  the 
Kaiser  and  God  ought  to  know  what  is 
right/ 

"Now  that,  in  effect,  is  exactly  what 
they  said  to  themselves.  A  people  may 
prosper  and  come  to  no  violent  trouble 
under  such  a  plan.  But  the  fact  is,  they 
are  living  around  the  crater  of  a  moral 
Vesuvius. 

"For  two  generations  all  seemed  to 
34 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

be  going  well  with  the  Germans.  Wil- 
liam I  was  a  fairly  decent-minded  man. 
Bismarck  was  unscrupulous  but  careful. 
He  stepped  softly  after  he  had  bitten  a 
chunk  out  of  France.  He  held  the 
throne  in  restraint  until  William,  the 
Godful,  jumped  upon  it  with  a  wild  yell 
of  heavenly  inspiration  that  startled  the 
world.  He  was  going  to  take  no  ad- 
vice from  Mr.  Bismarck — not  a  bit! 
Right  away  he  appointed  himself  secre- 
tary of  war  and  attorney  general  of  the 
Almighty.  No  such  astonishing  famil- 
iarity with  omnipotence  had  been  seen 
since  the  time  of  Moses. 

"There  is  an  ancient  legend  which 
says  that,  when  Csesar  invaded  Gaul,  an 
old  bowman  of  the  north,  having  been 
captured  and  brought  to  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  great  Consul,  said: 
"  'Hello,  Julius !    I  am  with  you/ 
"It  was  like  Bill  Hohenzollern,  only 
Bill   didn't   say   'Hello,   Julius!'     The 
whole  world  stood  aghast. 
35 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"Bismarck  stepped  down  and  out. 
He  must  have  seen  what  was  coming. 

"Now  this  young  lunatic  should  have 
been  examined  and  condemned  and  sent 
to  an  asylum  as  a  paranoiac.  Instead 
of  that,  he  was  given  full  power 
and  allowed  to  endow  and  develop  a 
school  of  bribed  historians  and  lunatic 
philosophers  to  justify  his  plans: — Treit- 
schke,  Nietzsche,  Bernhardi,  backed 
by  the  throne  and  all  the  supermaniacs 
that  surrounded  it.  They  created  the 
new  morality  of  Williamism  in  which 
all  human  decency  was  disemboweled 
and  God  and  the  devil  exchanged 
crowns.  Gosh  almighty!  It  seems  in- 
credible now  that  we  look  back  upon  it. 

"From  the  beginning  there  has  been 
a  flavor  of  the  little  tin  god  about  these 
Hohenzollern  fellers.  Frederick  the 
Great  had  a  menacing  rattle  of  self-as- 
sertion, like  that  of  a  Ford  car  going 
to  a  country  picnic.  His  favorite  dis- 
sipation was  kicking  soldiers.  It  was  a 
36 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

way  he  had  of  advertising  his  superior- 
ity. Macaulay  tells  us  that  he  needed 
proximity  and  not  provocation  to  kick 
a  soldier.  What  a  brave  Captain  he 
was!  Funny,  isn't  it,  how  the  great 
Captains  have  managed  to  take  care  of 
themselves.  Died  on  hair  mattresses, 
every  one  of  them  except  two,  Gustavus 
Adolphus  and  Stonewall  Jackson. 

"The  only  man  who  ever  insulted  me 
by  just  shaking  my  hand  was  a  mule- 
eared  Hohenzollern  chap  known  as 
Prince  Heinrich  of  Prussia.  I  can 
never  forget  that  you-to-hell  air  of  his 
as  he  took  my  hand  as  if  it  was  a  clod 
of  dirt,  without  even  a  look  at  me.  I 
have  always  been  sorry  that  I  didn't 
invite  him  to  the  sidewalk. 

"William  II  began  to  strut  in  the  mil- 
itary and  hot-air  game  as  soon  as  he 
ascended  the  throne,  and  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity to  tighten  his  hold  upon  the  con- 
sciences of  his  people. 

"Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of 
37 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

THE  MISLAID  CONSCIENCE. 

"I  used  to  know  a  feller  here  of  the 
name  of  Sam  Hopkins.  He  worked  for 
a  client  of  mine  who  ran  a  lock  factory. 
Sam  had  been  a  poor  lad — sold  news- 
papers on  the  street  night  and  morn- 
ing. My  client  liked  him  and  took  him 
over  to  the  big  shop  and  taught  him 
the  trade  of  making  locks  and  paid  his 
board  until  he  was  able  to  earn  it.  Sam 
became  an  expert  mechanic  and  shoved 
money  into  his  coffers  every  Saturday 
night.  By  and  by  he  had  a  wife  and 
three  children  and  a  comfortable  home 
and  a  goodly  amount  of  spondoolix 
earning  interest.  Now  for  the  chance 
to  accomplish  all  that  he  was  indebted 
to  my  friend  and  client. 

"By  and  by  Sam  joined  the  Trade 
Union.  Nobody  could  find  any  fault 
with  Sam  for  uniting  with  his  fellow 
workers  to  accomplish  any  fair  and 
reasonable  purpose.  But  Sam  had 
given  to  the  Trade  Union  exactly  what 
38 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

the  Germans  had  given  to  the  Kaiser 
and  the  Bundesrath,  He  had,  in  effect, 
turned  his  conscience  over  to  the  Union, 
which  had  full  authority  to  do  as  it 
thought  best  with  this  sacred  piece  of 
property.  Sam  didn't  realize  what  he 
had  done  until  the  Union  ordered  him 
to  strike. 

"To  be  sure  it  was  a  limited  propri- 
etorship over  his  conscience  which  Sam 
had  given  to  the  Union.  He  could  keep 
and  use  it  until  the  Union  called  for  it. 
He  had  given  a  kind  of  note  payable  in 
the  use  of  his  conscience  on  demand. 

"Sam  had  no  quarrel  with  the  works 
— no  more  quarrel  than  the  Germans 
had  with  the  Belgians — not  a  bit.  He 
was  more  than  satisfied  with  his  wages 
and  his  hours  and  his  general  treat- 
ment His  conscience  told  him  that  his 
duty  was  to  keep  at  work.  But  he  dis- 
covered suddenly  that  he  had  no  right 
to  the  use  of  his  own  conscience.  He 
had  deeded  it,  on  demand,  to  the  Union 
39 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

• — lock,  stock  and  barrel.  Sam  had  be- 
come a  kind  of  German  soldier. 

"War  was  declared.  Some  of  the 
faithful  servants  of  the  big  shop  were 
slain.  Others  were  injured;  a  part  of 
the  property  was  wrecked.  Sam  tried 
to  do  the  right  thing,  but  couldn't.  He 
went  with  the  German  army. 

"Now,  a  man's  conscience  is  given  to 
him  for  his  own  use— exclusively  for  his 
own  use.  There's  nothing  truer  than 
this:  A  man's  conscience  is  like  his 
tooth-brush — it  should  have  but  one 
proprietor.  You  can  not  leave  it  lying 
around  like  an  old  pair  of  shoes.  Your 
umbrella  is  not  as  easily  lost.  It  is  like 
your  right  hand.  You  can  not  lay  it 
away — you  can  not  lend  it,  and  the 
more  you  use  it  the  better  it  is  and  the 
less  you  use  it  the  weaker  it  is.  Either 
disuse  or  misuse  will  injure  it  and  pos- 
sibly deprive  you  of  its  service. 

"Now,  Sam's  conscience  got  mislaid  in 
the  shuffle.  He  suddenly  discovered  that 
40 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

he  hadn't  any.  I  guess  it  was  rather 
small  at  best.  It  was  through  this  loss 
that  I  came  to  know  about  him.  He  was 
out  of  work  for  seven  months  and  got 
to  drinking.  Idleness  and  regret  and 
the  loss  of  friends  turned  him  toward 
the  downward  path  of  women,  wine  and 
song.  He  is  now  in  a  Federal  prison 
for  counterfeiting — the  victim  of  Wil- 
liamism. 

"Now  just  what  had  happened  to  Sam 
had  happened  to  every  man  in  the  Ger- 
man army.  In  that  deal  with  the 
Kaiser  his  conscience  had  got  mislaid. 
He  was  ready  to  cut  off  the  hands  of  a 
child  or  torture  a  wounded  man  or 
shoot  an  inoffensive  civilian.  His  offi- 
cers encouraged  him  to  do  it  and  his 
conscience  was  not  on  duty.  It  had  been 
turned  over  to  the  Kaiser  and  the  Bun- 
desrath.  It  had  got  lost  in  the  shuffle. 

"I  have  told  you  that  William  had 
made  the  ideal  of  Germany  that  of  the 
41 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM: 

insect.  Let  me  be  sure  that  you  get  my 
meaning. 

"Have  you  watched  a  hive  of  bees  in 
bright  summer  weather?  Well,  you 
will  find  that  the  workers  wear  out 
their  wings  in  two  weeks  and  die.  The 
hive  has  only  two  purposes — storage 
and  race  perpetuation.  These  purposes 
are  carried  out  with  ruthless  and  per- 
fect efficiency.  The  drones  are  stung 
to  death  as  soon  as  they  are  discovered. 
The  worker  will  starve  and  die  for  the 
queen.  The  welfare  of  the  hive  is  the 
main  thing — that  of  the  individual  of 
no  account  whatever.  The  ants  live  and 
die  on  the  same  general  plan. 

"So  I  say  that  the  ideal  of  William- 
ism  is  that  of  the  insect.  The  hive  is 
the  empire.  Its  main  purposes  are 
storage  and  race  perpetuation.  Its  chief 
aim  is  efficiency.  The  nation  is  every- 
thing; the  individual  nothing.  The  in- 
dividual is  to  work  and  store  and  is  not 
even  to  take  the  time  to  cry  if  he  feels 
42 


The  hive  has  only  two  purposes — storage  and  race  perpetua- 
tion.     These    purposes    are    carried    out    with    ruthless    and 
perfect  efficiency.     The  drones  are  stung  to   death  as  soon 
as  they  are  discovered. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

like  it.  In  Berlin  fifty-three  per  cent, 
of  the  workers  live  with  their  families 
in  two  rooms. 

"Now  I  deny  that  the  main  purposes 
of  human  life  are  storage  and  race  per- 
petuation and  efficiency.  If  that  were 
true,  the  man  that  had  the  most  cash 
and  wives  and  children  would  be  the 
greatest  man  in  the  world. 

"A  few  years  ago  a  man  died  in  Eng- 
land. He  had  only  a  few  books  and 
about  five  hundred  dollars  in  money. 
Yet  he  was  called  one  of  the  greatest 
men  in  the  world.  Every  one  took  off 
his  hat  to  that  man  because  he  had 
Character.  He  was  Cardinal  Newman. 

"Lincoln  died  poor  and  he  was  about 
the  homeliest,  awkwardest  man  in 
America,  and  yet  the  whole  world 
mourned  for  him  because  he  had  accu- 
mulated Character. 

"That  is  the  great  thing,  and  the 
main  purpose  of  life  is  to  develop  char- 
acter in  individuals.  That  development 
43 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

comes  mostly  through  failure.  Success 
is  the  worst  of  teachers. 

"If  one  were  to  estimate  the  great- 
ness of  a  people  he  would  disregard  its 
armies  and  navies  and  the  splendor  of 
its  cities  and  the  deposits  in  its  banks, 
and  go  out  to  that  people  and  appraise 
the  character  of  its  average  man, — his 
respect  for  honor  and  decency  and  espe- 
cially his  respect  for  that  great,  world 
embracing  unit  known  as  human  rights. 

"Right  here  I  must  tell  you  the  story 
of 

THE   LEATHEUHEAD    MONARCH. 

"There  was  once  a  man  who  was  born 
successful.  He  inherited  success  and 
for  many  years  kept  it  coming  his  way. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  man  of  the  name 
of  Shote?  Of  course  not.  Neither  did 
I.  That's  one  reason  why  I  am  going 
to  call  him  Shote — John  Shote,  if  you 
please.  My  story  is  strictly  true,  but  I 
44 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

would  ask  no  one  to  believe  the  name  of 
its  leading  character. 

"John  was  ai  great  success.  Some 
people  called  him  a  great  man.  Indeed, 
everybody  took  off  his  hat  and  said: 
'How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Shote?'  or  words  to 
that  effect  when  he  came  along. 

"I  suppose  you  will  think  that  Mr. 
Shote  only  nodded  and  passed  on,  but 
he  was  not  so  bad  as  that.  No,  he  an- 
swered: 'Very  well,  thank  you/  and 
went  about  his  business.  He  failed  to 
return  your  solicitude  but  did  not  won- 
der at  it. 

"He  lived  in  a  neighboring  town — let 
us  call  it  Shoteville — and  was  soon,  in- 
deed, the  principal  Shote  of  Shoteville. 
The  business  was  there.  It  had  always 
prospered.  When  his  father  died,  John 
took  the  crown  and  became  a  swearing, 
rantankerous  tyrant. 

"He  inaugurated  a  system  of  effi- 
ciency. He  trusted  nobody.  There  was 
45 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

an  indicator  at  the  entrance  of  the  big 
building  and  every  worker  great  and 
email  had  to  touch  a  button  on  this 
indicator  when  he  left  or  entered  the 
place.  He  had  a  kind  of  guillotine  in 
his  office  and  every  day  heads  fell  into 
the  basket.  But  when  a  man  left  Mr. 
Shote  it  was  a  point  to  his  credit  in 
Shoteville.  It  showed  that  he  was  above 
being  sworn  at.  It  was  a  kind  of  rec- 
ommendation— a  thing  to  boast  of. 
Every  one  in  the  shop  was  sooner  or 
later  called  by  Mr.  Shote  "a  damn 
leather  head."  It  was  a  kind  of  initi- 
ation. If  he  accepted  the  classification 
and  remained  Mr.  Shote  decided  that 
he  was  amenable  to  discipline  and 
thought  him  a  promising  man.  Out- 
siders looked  down  upon  him.  The  men 
who  stayed  year  after  year  and  en- 
dured the  insults  of  Mr.  Shote  were 
known  in  that  community  as  'the  damn 
leatherheads/ 

"Every  worker  was  a  wheel  or  a  shaft 
46 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

or  a  lever  in  the  big  machine.    When 
worn  or  broken,  he  was  cast  aside. 

"It  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Shote  was 
one  of  the  followers  of  William.  In  his 
office  were  busts  of  Julius  and  Augustus 
Csesar  and  portraits  of  Napoleon  and 
Frederick  the  Great.  He  worshiped 
power  and  kicked  the  common  soldier. 

"While  he  was  in  America,  I  am  glad 
to  say  he  was  not  an  American — not 
really.  To  be  sure  he  was  born  here 
and  voted  here,  but  he  was  really  a 
Prussian  and  his  shop  was  a  little  king- 
dom in  the  midst  of  a  democracy. 

"Mr.  Shote  really  thought  himself  one 
of  the  noblest  men  that  ever  lived.  He 
was  a  great  success  even  as  a  thinker. 
A  man  can  think  himself  into  anything 
he  pleases  from  a  lobster  to  a  saint. 
Just  where  he  got  og  I  leave  the  reader 
to  judge. 

"Unfortunately,  Mr.  Shote  believed 
his  own  thoughts — all  of  them.    It  is  a 
dangerous  habit  to  acquire — that  of  be- 
47 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

lieving  oneself — believe  me.  If  there's 
any  one  that  requires  careful  corrobo- 
ration  it's  yourself.  Mr.  Shote  could 
not  help  believing  his  own  thoughts — • 
they  were  so  commanding  and  imperi- 
ous. 

"Whatever  else  we  may  say  of  him 
he  was  honest,  as  men  go.  He  paid  his 
debts  promptly  and  kept  his  credit  high 
and  even  gave  large  sums  to  charity. 

"His  great  lack  was  common  sense; 
his  great  failing  an  uncontrolled  tem- 
per. When  you  become  the  pivot  around 
which  the  whole  world  revolves  you  are 
apt  to  get  hot  and  noisy.  The  world 
bears  down  rather  hard.  So  Mr.  Shote 
squeaked  and  roared  with  anger  every 
day  of  his  life. 

"His  great  vice  was  too  much  effi- 
ciency. No  man  in  the  plant  had  any 
power  of  initiative,  due  to  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Shote  had  no  faith  in  any  one  but 
himself.  The  plant  preceded  on  an 
iron  plan. 

48 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"Now,  every  big  thing  that  was  ever; 
accomplished  has  been  the  work  of  some 
individual  who  at  a  critical  moment  has 
broken  away  from  plans  and  made  his 
own  orders  and  acted  on  them — the 
kind  of  thing  that  Grant  did  at  Appo- 
mattox ;  the  kind  of  thing  that  Lincoln 
did  in  his  great  proclamation.  Bill  Ho- 
henzollern  would  have  called  it  ineffi- 
ciency. 

"Just  that  kind  of  thing  would  have 
saved  Mr.  Shote  in  the  critical  moment 
of  his  career.  That  moment  fell  upon 
him  like  a  thunderbolt  out  of  a  clear  sky 
one  day. 

"If  you  sow  Williamism  you  are 
bound  to  reap  it.  Mr.  Shote's  lavish 
crop  ripened  suddenly. 

"The  'Leatherheads'  decided  one  day 
to  meet  efficiency  with  efficiency.  They 
were  right.  Mr.  Shote  had  been  run- 
ning a  little  kingdom  in  America  and 
the  'Leatherheads*  founded  one  of  their 
own.  They  had  started  a  union  and 
49 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

appointed  an  emperor  and  told  him  to 
go  ahead  and  outkaiser  the  king.  They 
struck  for  higher  wages  and  fewer 
hours.  Mr.  Shote  was  away  at  one  of 
his  palaces  in  the  South. 

"Now  all  the  trouble  might  have 
ended  in  a  decent  compromise  that  day 
if  the  boss  of  the  *Leatherheads'  on  duty 
at  the  time  had  had  the  power  and  cour- 
age to  act  on  his  own  judgment  and  do 
a  really  big  thing  for*  once  in  his  lif e. 
He  didn't  have  it.  The  wheels  stopped. 

"The  king  returned.  His  irritation 
was  heard  in  distant  places.  He  would 
never  yield.  His  men  were  no  longer 
'Leatherheads.*  They  were  inversely 
promoted.  It  was  a  critical  time  in  the 
business.  The  plant  went  into  default 
on  its  contracts.  The  king  stood  firm; 
so  did  the  workers. 

"The  plant  was  idle  for  months.    It 

was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  Mr. 

Shote's  prosperity.    His  rivals  captured 

his  best  men  and  his  customers  and 

50 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

most  of  the  good  will  he  had  enjoyed. 
The  business  went  down  like  a  house 
of  cards, 

"We  often  say  that  business  is  busi- 
ness here  in  America.  It  isn't  so.  Busi- 
ness is  more,  much  more  than  mere 
business  here  in  America.  It  is  friend- 
ship, it  is  personality,  it  is  credit — the 
credit  for  good  sense  and  square  deal- 
ing and  high  character — a  character 
that  is  shared  in  some  measure  by  every 
servant  of  the  enterprise,  be  he  mana- 
ger or  errand  boy. 

"That  cohesive  power  that  flows  out 
of  a  great  personality  into  the  whole 
structure  of  a  business  was  not  in  the 
warp  and  woof  of  Mr.  Shote's  commer- 
cial ramifications.  They  came  to  grief. 
So  did  Mr.  Shote. 

"Then  we  discovered  suddenly  that 
Mr.  Shote  had  two  wives  and  two  fam- 
ilies. As  a  husband  and  a  father  he 
had  enjoyed  a  success  at  once  unusual 
and  .unsuspected.  A  superman  is 
51 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

generally  super  married.  He  had  ac- 
quired imperial  morals.  The  second 
wife  appealed  to  the  courts  in  a  wild 
yell  for  her  stopped  allowance  and  the 
result  was  that,  in  a  short  time,  Mr. 
Shote  stood  alone  and  universally  de- 
spised between  two  family  fires.  His 
efficiency  had  gone  too  far. 

"Again  I  say,  success  is  the  worst  of 
teachers — save  to  those  who  sit  in  the 
grand  stand  while  it  is  working  out  its 
failure.  Unfortunately,  it  gave  the  la- 
boring men  of  this  country  a  lesson  in 
Williamism  which  has  spread  over 
America.  I  wish  the  workers  all  success 
in  getting  their  just  share  of  the  fruits 
of  commerce,  but  let  it  be  done  by  fair, 
democratic  methods  and  not  through 
Williamism. 

"Above  all  no  man  should  hitch  his 
conscience  to  a  post  as  if  it  were  a  mule 
or  a  nanny-goat  and  go  off  and  leave  it. 

"It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  patriotic 
Samuel  Gompers  will  not  abandon  his 
52 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

pursuit  of  Williamism  even  after  the 
war  ends. 

"The  big  point  of  the  whole  thing  is 
this :  One  day  the  Leatherhead  Monarch 
came  into  this  office,  closed  the  door  be- 
hind him,  sat  down  beside  me  and  said : 

"  'Mr.  Potter,  I  see  that  I  have  the  in- 
tellect of  an  idiot.  What  shall  I  do  to 
be  saved?' 

"At  last  he  had  learned  something — ; 
a  really  serviceable  and  important  fact 
— and  he  had  learned  it  not  by  success 
but  by  failure." 

As  he  approached  his  climax,  Mr. 
Potter  had  shown  a  little  annoyance  at 
the  arrival  of  the  waiter  and  the  hash 
and  the  eggs  and  the  pie.  Mr.  Potter 
rose,  stood  his  rifle  in  a  corner  and  said : 

"I  regret  that  my  climax  and  this 
wandering  Ganymede  with  his  load  of 
hash  should  have  arrived  at  the  same 
moment." 

The  waiter  spread  the  table  in  front 
of  the  fireplace.  Mr.  Potter  put  a  coin 
53 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

in  his  hand  and  pointing  at  the  door 
said: 

"Go  hence  and  come  not  back  until 
to-morrow." 

He  placed  chairs  by  the  table  and  we 
sat  down. 

"Is  this  pie,  apple,  that  I  see  before 
me  the  handle  toward  my  hand?"  he 
playfully  remarked,  as  he  lifted  a  firm 
built  piece  of  pie  in  his  hand  and  began 
to  eat  it  in  the  old  fashion.  "Bread 
may  be  the  staff  of  life,  but  pie  is  the 
light  in  its  windows.  I  don't  want  to 
be  hurried  by  its  invitation,  so  I  guess 
I'll  get  it  out  of  the  way." 


CHAPTER  III 

WHICH    PRESENTS     THE     STORY     OF     THE 
SMOTHERED      SON 

Our  dinner  over,  Mr.  Potter  put  a 
new  log  on  the  fire.  Then  we  set  the 
table  aside  and  lighted  our  cigars. 

"There  is  another  sector  in  the  line 
of  the  Williamites  that  is  pretty  thor- 
oughly dug  in,"  said  the  Honorable 
Socrates,  as  he  put  his  feet  upon  the 
fender  and  leaned  back  comfortably  in 
his  chair.  "Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of 

THE   SMOTHERED  SOX. 

"She  was  a  Williamistic  widow — the 
relict  of  the  late  Samuel  Butters. 

"She  was  also  a  Shrimpstone,  of  Kal- 
amazoo.  My  friend,  why  do  you  sit 
there  in  cold  indifference  when  I  men- 
tion a  fact  so  inspiring?" 

"Who  were  the  Shrimpstones  ?"  I  in- 
quired. 

55 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"The  Shrimpstones !  Jimmy  crickets ! 
Is  it  possible  that  you  are  not  familiar 
with  the  fame  of ;  Joshua  Shrimpstone?" 

"I  have  to  plead  guilty,"  was  my  an- 
swer. 

"To  tell  you  the  truth,  so  do  I,"  he 
went  on,  "but  my  own  ignorance  never 
surprises  me.  There  is  so  much  of  it 
that  a  little  more  or  less  does  not  mat- 
ter. It  is  the  ignorance  of  so  many  of 
my  fellow  countrymen  regarding  this 
important  subject  that  fills  me  with  pity 
and  astonishment.  I  have  never  met  a 
man  who  could  give  me  the  slightest 
information  regarding  the  Shrimp- 
stones.  It  would  seem  that  Mrs.  Butters 
enjoys  an  arrogant  and  heartless  mon- 
opoly of  all  knowledge  about  them.  One 
does  not  feel  like  asking  her  to  dispel  his 
ignorance  when  she  speaks  the  word 
'Shrimpstone'  as  if  it  opened  vistas  of 
incomparable  splendor  and  inspiration. 
No,  there  are  things  which  even  a  law- 
yer can  not  do.  There  is  a  special  look 
56 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

in  her  eye  and  a  lyrical  note  in  her  voice 
when  she  says  'my  grandfather,  the  late 
Joshua  Shrimpstone.'  I  imagine  that 
Bill  Hohenzollern  looks  like  that  whea 
he  says:  'My  grandfather,  Frederick 
the  Great.'  But  I  imagine,  too,  that 
Bill's  manner  is  a  bit  more  casual. 

"I  had  done  some  business  for  Mrs. 
Butters  now  and  then,  and  one  day  she 
came  to  get  my  advice  on  a  strictly  per- 
sonal matter.  Her  son,  John  Shrimp- 
stone  Butters,  was  just  out  of  college. 
She  had  expected  Butters  &  Bronson,  of 
the  great  corset  factory,  in  which  she 
had  a  considerable  interest,  to  take  him 
into  the  firm  and  give  him  a  command- 
ing position  in  the  office.  As  they  had 
not  come  forward  with  an  invitation, 
she  had  asked  them  for  that  favor. 
They  had  refused — actually  and  firmly 
refused — and  what  do  you  think  they 
had  offered  John — a  great  grandson  of 
Joshua  Shrimpstone?  Why,  they  had 
offered  him  a  place  as  errand  boy  at 
57 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

five  dollars  a  week.  They  actually  ex- 
pected him  to  begin  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ladder  and  work  his  way  up  as  if  he 
were  nothing  more  than  the  ambitious 
son  of  a  ditch  digger.  Mrs.  Butters  lost 
her  self-control  and  sobbed  aa  she  con- 
fided the  distressing  fact  to  me. 

"I  told  her  that  I  would  have  a  talk 
with  Bill  Bronson,  the  head  of  the  firm, 
and  see  what  could  be  done  about  it,  and 
she  left  me. 

"In  my  talk  with  him,  Bill  said : 
"  'We  should  like  to  do  anything  we 
can  for  Mrs.  Butters'a  boy  but  all  we 
can  do  is  to  give  him  a  chance — the 
same  chance  that  my  own  boy  will  have. 
He  can  begin  at  the  bottom  and  we  will 
push  him  along  from  one  department 
to  another  as  rapidly  as  he  can  master 
its  details.  He  must  learn  every  process 
from  the  making  to  the  delivery  of  the 
goods.  Above  all,  he  must  learn  to  be 
a  good  salesman.  After  a  few  years  he 
might  become  the  Butters  of  Butters  & 
58 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

Bronson  if  he  were  willing  to  work 
hard.' 

"I  wired  Mrs.  Butters  to  call  again  at 
my  office.  She  called.  I  told  her  what 
Bill  Bronson  had  said  to  me. 

"'What!'  she  exclaimed.  'He  ex- 
pects my  son  to  become  a  common  drum- 
mer and  travel  around  selling  goods  to 
little  shopkeepers!  Impossible  I' 

"'Why?' I  asked. 

"  ^Because  he  does  not  have  to.  My 
grandfather,  the  late  Joshua  Shrimp- 
stone,  left  us  enough  so  that  we  do  not 
have  to  do  that  kind  of  thing.  Besides, 
I  do  not  think  it  is  necessary.  My  son 
has  intelligence  enough  to  learn  those 
menial  pursuits  without  having  to  do 
them.' 

"'You  are  wrong/  I  said.  The 
American  way  is  to  begin  at  the  bot- 
tom. It's  a  very  good  way — the  only 
way  by  which  one  may  be  thoroughly 
prepared  for  management.  In  that  way 
he  gets  hold  of  the  sense  that  is  com- 
59 


KEEPING  UP  WITH   WILLIAM 

mon  in  the  rank  and  file  of  his  army, 
and  knowing  that,  he  will  know  what 
to  do  in  every  emergency/ 

"  'If  that  is  true,  John  might  as 
well  have  been  born  poor.  Does  his  po- 
sition and  the  fact  that  I  have  five  thou- 
sand shares  of  stock  count  for  noth- 
ing?' 

"  'Well,  you  get  dividends  on  the  stock. 
If  you  expect  to  get  dividends  also  on 
the  position  that  you  got  from  your 
grandfather  you  are  wrong.  In  this 
country  we  have  no  crown  princes  who 
begin  at  the  top.  Inherited  superiority 
is  an  amusing  thing  to  look  at  but  a 
poor  foundation  for  credit.  In  this 
country  we  bank  on  demonstrated  su- 
periority/ 

"Mrs.  Butters  rose  and  haughtily 
withdrew  from  my  office  with  the  pride 
of  the  Shrimpstones  glittering  in  her 
eye. 

"Now,  John  Butters  was  a  good  fel- 
low. He  was  over-mothered.  Indeed, 
60 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

the  word  for  it  is  smothered.  He  was 
like  a  man  cast  into  the  sea  with  a 
Shrimpstone  tied  around  his  neck.  He 
would  have  done  well  with  half  a  chance. 
I  never  saw  a  man  so  badly  in  need  of 
poverty,  so  damned  with  affectionate, 
gilded,  comfortable  female  despotism. 
She  bought  one  business  after  another 
for  him  and  put  him  in  at  the  top.  He 
has  failed  in  all  these  undertakings. 
His  way  is  littered  with  broken  crowns 
and  the  wreckage  of  little  kingdoms. 

"Now  his  youth  is  gone  and  he  is  the 
same  useless,  ineffective  good  fellow 
that  he  was  in  the  beginning.  For  years 
he  and  his  mother  have  been  sitting  on 
that  high  horse  of  hers  and  galloping 
around  to  the  amusement  of  all  behold- 
ers. He  has  got  tired  of  it  and  jumped 
off  and  settled  down  as  the  clerk  of  a 
wife  who  takes  him  lightly. 

"He  is  the  victim  of  assumed  super- 
iority which  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  Williamism." 
61 


WHICH   HANDS  OUT   SOME    SENSE   COMMON 
TQ  THE  SUPERERS  IN  AMERICA 

The  Honorable  Socrates  Potter  went 
to  the  typewriter  and  got  some  oil  and 
a  cloth  and  began  to  clean  the  gun  of 
his  great  grandfather  as  he  talked. 

"You  see,  William  says:  'To  hell  with 
the  common  man.  Let  him  do  the  work 
and  the  fighting.  We'll  take  the  product 
of  toil  and  the  loot  of  war  and  enjoy; 
ourselves.  We  will  not  have  a  thing  to 
do  but  super.  If  we  glut  the  officers  of 
the  army  and  our  leading  citizens  with 
the  product  and  the  loot,  they'll  stand 
by  us.' 

"Is  it  not  significant  that  the  number 
of  plutocrats  in  Germany  has  doubled 
since  the  war  began?  William  proposes 
to  make  human  slaughter  a  business. 
He  is  running  a  giant  butcher  shop. 

"Every  idler,  every  superer  is  an  ally, 
62 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

of  William  and  an  enemy  of  Democ- 
racy." 

"But  they  seem  to  get  the  best  of  it — 
these  superers,"  I  suggested.  "They 
have  a  lot  of  fun." 

"They  seem  to,  but,  soon  or  late,  they 
learn  it  hasn't  paid.  They  come  to  grief 
or  insanity — these  slackers  in  the  game 
of  life.  Let  me  tell  you  the  little  story 
of 

THE    WEDDING    TOURIST. 

"She  had  the  most  curious  and  pain- 
ful brainful  of  sense  preferred  in  the 
whole  show. 

"When  I  was  a  small  boy  my  pocket 
was  one  day  dispossessed  of  some  green 
apples,  a  quantity  of  horse  nails  and 
lead  sinkers,  a  squirt  gun,  a  bird's  nest, 
a  piece  of  beeswax  and  a  hawk's  wing. 
This  collection  would  rank  high  as  an 
exhibit  of  eccentric  assets,  but  the  con- 
tents of  this  lady's  mind  belongs  in  the 
same  alcove. 

"It  is  to  be  credited  to  Alabama 
63 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

where  she  was  born  about  sixty  years 
before  I  met  her  in  Paris  last  summer. 
She  had  a  charming  southern  accent. 
It  was  the  best  thing  she  had.  I  liked 
it.  I  like  all  those  little  provincialisms 
which  have  the  flavor  of  their  native 
air  and  soil.  Why  shouldn't  the  manner 
of  decent  men  and  women  grow  in  the 
way  of  nature  out  of  their  environ- 
ment? I  love  the  drawl  that  is  the  nat- 
ural product  of  New  England,  the 
quaint,  indolent  slur  of  Dixieland,  the 
breezy  dialect  of  the  Far  West.  If  they 
all  talked  alike  what  a  dull  country  we 
should  have! 

"Certain  of  the  schools  are  trying  to 
force  a  common  method  of  speech.  It 
is  the  dialect  of  Mayf air  and  Fifth  Ave- 
nue. It  would  seem  that  they  wish  to 
turn  us  into  human  bricks  of  the  same 
size,  grade  and  color.  Under  the  en- 
couragement of  Mr.  Henry  James, 
whose  slender  Americanism  perished  at 
last  in  formal  expatriation,  our  New 
64 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

York  and  New  England  girls  have  be- 
gun to  talk  like  Duchesses.  But  among 
women  of  the  South  and  the  Far  West, 
you  may  still  hear  the  real,  genuine 
American  talk.  To  me  it  is  refreshing. 

"At  least  this  may  be  said  for  The 
Wedding  Tourist — she  was  no  school- 
made,  rococo  Duchess.  She  was  as  real 
and  unaffected  as  a  bale  of  hay. 

"Sometimes  I  call  her  The  Grasshop- 
per Widow  because  she  was  always  on 
the  move.  She  had  hopped  twice  around 
the  world  and  back.  When  she  needed 
a  husband  she  reached  out  and  grabbed 
one  and  hastened  away  on  another  wed- 
ding tour  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

"To  her,  life  was  a  series  of  wedding 
tours.  She  had  jumped  from  one 
honeymoon  to  another  in  the  most  cas- 
ual and  engaging  fashion.  She  was,  in- 
deed, a  kind  of  professional  honey- 
mooner  who  from  the  beginning  of  her 
matrimonial  career  had  enjoyed  the 
pseudonym  of  Baby.  Inns,  table  d'hotes, 
65 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

ruins,  art  galleries,  theaters,  scenery 
and  honey-fuglement  had  filled  her  life. 

"She  had  explored  the  capitals  of  the 
world  with  real  feminine  curiosity.  She 
had  loved  their  music  and  doted  upon 
their  art  and  tasted  their  religion  and 
rustled  in  their  silks  and  generally  beat 
the  bushes  to  see  what  would  run  out. 

"When  we  first  met,  a  remark  of 
hers  suggested  my  query: 

"  Was  your  husband  a  Yale  man?' 

"  'Which  one?  I've  had  two  an'  a 
half/ 

"  Two  and  a  half !  I  never  heard  of 
a  fractional  husband  before.' 

"'My  first  husband  was  only  half  a 
man,  euh.  I  married  my  guardian 
when  I  was  sixteen.  He  nevah  would  do 
a  thing  between  trips  but  sit  around  an' 
eat  an'  drink  mint  juleps.  We  went  on 
our  wedding  tour  and  I  kept  him  going 
for  two  years,  but  it  was  hard  work. 
Nearly  wore  me  out.  He  was  like  one 
of  those  toys  that  you  have  to  wind  up 
66 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

before  it  will  go.  Always  had  a  pain  in 
his  feet — nevah  could  dance  or  do  a 
thing  but  just  sit,  or  ride  on  the  cars 
or  in  a  spring  wagon.  Lordy,  girls! 
don't  evah  many  a  man  'til  you've  tried 
his  feet  an*  have  confidence  in  'em. 
Now,  you  hear  me !  He  nevah  did  do  a 
thing  to  please  me  but  call  me  "Baby." 
"  'The  next  man  I  married  had  a  sis- 
tuh  with  a  weak  mind  by  the  name  of 
Peggy.  I  had  to  look  after  her  an*  she'd 
take  out  her  mind,  like,  an*  open  it  an* 
show  it  to  everybody  that  came  into  the 
house,  an*  turn  it  inside  out  as  if  she 
was  right  proud  of  it.  Honestly,  it  re- 
minded me  of  my  boy  when  he  got  his 
first  watch — how  he'd  open  it  an*  show 
you  the  works  an*  then  hold  it  up  to 
your  ear  so  you  could  hear  it  tick. 
That's  what  Peggy  was  always  doing 
with  her  mind,  recitin'  poetry  or 
showin'  you  pearls  of  thought  taken  out 
of  the  clam  beds  of  her  intellect.  It  cer- 
tainly was  awful! 

67 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"  Tercy  Higginbottom  had  a  wooden 
leg  an'  limped  some,  but  the  worst  thing 
about  him  was  Peggy.  I  have  erected 
a  monument  a  mile  high  to  that  man  in 
the  graveyard  of  my  memory.  He  was 
right  good  to  me.  He  would  stump 
around  all  day  lookin'  at  sights  and  take 
me  to  the  theater  in  the  evening  and  to 
supper  afterwards  and  nevah  mur- 
mured. Sometimes  his  leg  got  sore  but 
he  kept  up. 

"  'I  married  him  in  Paris.  We  started 
off  on  our  weddin'  tour  an'  it  lasted 
about  fifteen  years.  We  traveled  an* 
traveled  all  that  time.  We  played  we 
was  just  married  and  on  our  honey- 
moon. 

"  'He  used  to  say :  "Baby,  what  a  won- 
derful time  we  are  having  on  this  wed- 
ding tour." 

"  'We  had  two  children — a  boy  and  a 
girl.  Once  a  year  we'd  come  back  to 
Paris  and  spend  two  or  three  months 
with  them/ 

68 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"'You  didn't  take  them  with  you?' 

"  'We  left  them  with  Mr.  Higginbot- 
tom's  mothah  an*  a  nurse  an'  governess. 
Peggy,  the  sistuh  with  a  weak  mind, 
went  with  us — she  was  all  the  care  we 
needed.  She  knew  enough  to  hook  an* 
button  my  dresses  an'  help  me  pack. 
She  was  the  only  black  spot  in  all  those 
happy  years. 

"'Percy  took  care  o'  my  jewels.  It 
was  all  he  had  to  do/ 

"  'A  tender  husband  and  a  watch  dog 
of  the  jewels!'  I  remarked. 

"  'And  there  were  hours  when  it  kept 
him  mighty  busy — you  hear  me.  I 
can't  help  laughin'  whenever  I  think 
of  it. 

"  'Once  we  missed  one  of  my  rings. 
We  thought  it  had  been  stolen.  The 
hotel  manager  had  every  maid  and  bell 
boy  brought  into  our  room  and  searched. 
Suddenly  Percy  found  it  in  a  waistcoat 
pocket. 

"  'One  evening  we  were  gettin'  off  a 
69 


steamer.  Suddenly  I  slapped  my  hand 
on  my  breast  and  yelled : 

"'"My  sunburst!  Lord  o'  mercy! 
it's  gone!" 

"  'I  was  suah  that  I  had  put  it  on. 
We  ran  back  up  the  gangway.  We  had 
only  five  minutes.  Peggy  fainted  away 
— she  was  that  weak-minded.  You 
didn't  dare  sneeze  for  fear  she  would 
faint  away.  Percy  grabbed  her.  I  ran 
for  the  stateroom  an'  found  the  sun- 
burst where  I  had  left  it  under  my  pil- 
low. We  were  all  in,  believe  me — it 
nearly  killed  us.  When  we  moved  Percy 
always  called  the  roll  like:  "The  ruby 
ring,"  an'  I  answered,  "Here."  "The 
jade  necklace."  "Here."  Like  that, 
until  we  knew  that  we  had  them  all. 
That  evening  we  didn't  have  time. 

"  'But  we  certainly  did  see  the  world 
until  we  lost  something  better  than  all 
the  jewels.  Lordy!  Lordy!  what  a 
world  it  is! 

"  "The  boy  died  when  he  waa  eight. 
We  were  in  Cairo.  We  hurried  back  to 
70 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

Paris.  Mr.  Higginbottom  was  nevah 
the  same  after  that.  I  nevah  could  get 
him  out  of  Paris  again.  He  died  there. 

"  *My  next  husband  was  the  dearest 
and  best  man  that  evah  did  live.  I  met 
him  here  in  Paris,  His  name  was  Hor- 
ton.  Weighed  three  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds.  Some  man !  I  says  to  myself : 
Now  here's  a  man  that'll  las'  me  as  long 
as  I  live.  He  drank  too  much,  but  I 
soon  cured  him  o*  that.  He  gave  it  up 
entirely  an*  our  weddin'  tour  lasted  'til 
he  died/ 

"  Terhaps  It  wore  him  out,'  I  sug- 
gested. 

"  *No,  he  liked  it  and  we  were  just  as 
happy  as  two  turtle  doves.  When  I 
asked  him  to  do  anything,  he  would  al- 
ways say:  "Well,  Baby,  you  know 
best." 

"  *But  he  couldn't  walk  much.  Weight 
was  his  great  weakness.  If  you  were 
jus'  to  think  of  him  as  a  husband  he 
was  a  little  heavy;  but  no  man  is  per- 
fect. 

71 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"  'We  had- a  big  limousine  an'  he  toted 
me  around  in  that  an'  hired  a  maid  to 
climb  stairs  an'  go  to  the  churches  an* 
theaters  an'  art  galleries  with  me. 

"  'My  daughtah  had  married  an'  set- 
tled in  Chicago.  One  Decembah  we 
thought  it  would  be  nice  to  go  and  spend 
Christmas  with  her.  I  just  thought  I'd 
stop  beating  around  and  get  acquainted 
with  my  own  family.  We  left  Paris  on 
the  tenth  and  reached  Chicago  on  the 
twenty-second.  I  called  my  daughtah 
on  the  telephone  from  our  hotel. 

" '  "My  goodness!  Is  that  you?"  she 
said. 

" '  "Yes,"  I  said,  "we  have  come  all 
the  way  from  Paris  to  spend  Christmas 
with  you." 

"  t  «j»m  awfuiiy  sorry,  mothah,"  she 
says.  "The  house  will  be  full  Christmas 
Day,  but  we'll  have  you  for  New 
Jean's." 

"She  stopped  and  wiped  the  tears 
from  her  eyes. 

72 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"  'Say,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  hit  with 
an  axe.  My  husband  said: 

"'"Well,  Baby,  I  guess  they  don't 
want  us.  Don't  you  mind.  We'll  have 
a  good  Christmas  dinner  here  at  the 
hotel  and  then  we'll  go  and  spend  a 
month  in  New  York." 

"  'I  stopped  traveling  and  went  to 
thinking.  Poor  Mr.  Horton  didn't  live 
long.  Now  he's  gone  an'  I  haven't  any- 
body. No,  my  daughtah  does  not  care 
for  me.  Her  ol'  nurse  lives  with  her — 
an  ignorant  French  woman.  I  offered  to 
work  hard  if  she  would  send  that  nurse 
away  an'  take  me  to  live  with  her.  She 
wouldn't  do  it — no,  suh !  She  loves  that 
nurse  an'  doesn't  care  for  me — not  the 
snap  of  her  fingah.  I  have  been  trying 
to  get  a  chance  to  work  for  the  Red 
Cross.  My  money  is  about  gone.  They 
say  money  talks  but  all  it  evah  says  to 
me  is  "good-by."  My  daughtah's  hus- 
band has  offered  me  a  small  allowance, 
but  I  will  not  take  their  money — no,  suh ! 
73 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

One  wants  affection  from  her  daughtah 
•—not  charity !  Lordy  t  what  a  world  it 
is  an*  what  fools  we  are  P 

"  'You've  been  playing  ever  since  you 
were  a  little  girl,  and  you're  tired.' 

"  'Yes,  I'm  tired.  I  remember  how  my 
big  brother  used  to  come  an*  plague  me 
an*  break  my  toys.  That  is  what  Death 
has  been  doing  to  me.  Wouldn't  let  me 
alone.  I  reckon  he  saw  how  foolish  I 
was.  I've  seen  about  everything  but  I 
think  the  grandest  sight  in  the  world 
would  be  some  one  who  was  glad  to  see 
me.  You  can't  make  friends  an*  be  al- 
ways on  the  move/ 

"I  suppose  she  had  come  back  to  Paris 
to  comb  the  beach  for  another  wreck. 
But  her  beauty  was  gone — so  was  her 
occupation  of  Baby. 

"Often,  I  wonder  just  how  the  story 
is  to  end — the  story  of  that  pathetic 
woman  who  was  reaping  what  she  had 
sown — the  harvest  of  the  childless  moth- 
er. 

74 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"Well,  anyhow,  at  last,  common  sense 
had  landed  in  her  intellect.  She  had 
never  given  it  a  chance  before.  Had- 
n't stood  still  long  enough." 


CHAPTER  V 

WHICH  DROPS  A  FEW  ROUNDS  OP  SHRAP- 
NEL  ON    THE   HUNS   IN   AMERICA 

Mr.  Potter  had  got  through  with  the 
gun.  He  rose  and  went  to  the  wash  bas- 
in as  if  intending  to  wash  his  hands. 
He  turned  suddenly  as  if  he  thought 
Germany  were  more  in  need  of  a  wash- 
ing. He  strode  toward  me  with  a  new 
idea  gleaming  in  his  eye  and  said : 

"Darn  it,  I  ain't  got  time  to  wash  now. 
These  Germans  claim  that  they  are  the 
freest  people  in  the  world,  and  they  are 
right." 

He  thumped  the  table  with  a  shut  fist 
as  he  resumed  his  talk. 

"One  kind  of  liberty  thrives  under 
the  Hohenzollerns.  License  is  the  pre- 
cise word  for  it — not  liberty- — license 
to  eat  and  drink  and  be  sorry — to  sat- 
isfy the  appetites  of  the  flesh.  The 
great  crowd  will  stand  a  lot  of  tamper- 
76 


The  land  of  the  Kaiser  has  lost  its  chivalry,  and  the  loss  of 
chivalry  stands  for  the  loss  of  conscience — for  moral  degrada- 
tion.    A  man's  value  as  a  man  may  be  accurately  measured 
by  his  respect  for  women. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

ing  with  its  rights  if  you  give  it  a  good 
time — a  broad  privilege  of  self-indul- 
gence. The  Germans  were  a  great 
people  when  Bill  Hohenzollern  took  the 
reins  of  power — good-natured,  industri- 
ous, God-fearing.  The  young  men  were 
encouraged  to  found  their  happiness  on 
the  sands  of  women,  wine  and  song. 

"The  wine  press  and  the  beer  vat  are 
the  indispensable  adjuncts  of  Hohenzol- 
lerism.  Alcohol  is  the  balm  of  the  mis- 
laid conscience,  the  nourishment  of  the 
big-head  and  the  pneumatic  brain. 
These  things  lead  to  worse  things. 
Swinish  indulgence  leads  to  the  morals 
of  the  swine-yard. 

"The  church  began  to  lose  its  power. 
The  clergy  were  treated  as  Frederick 
treated  the  common  soldier.  They  were 
kicked  into  servility.  At  first  this  kick- 
ing was  politely  done.  Often  the  sore 
part  was  salved  by  the  gift  of  a  hundred 
marks.  They  were  treated  like  hired 
men.  They  were  to  understand  that 
77 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

they  were  just  humble  servants  and 
that  the  Kaiser  needed  none  of  their  ad- 
vice. He  knew  all  about  the  plans  of 
God.  Of  course,  in  a  little  while,  no 
man  of  brains-  and*  character  would  go 
near  a  pulpit.  The  priests  of  God  be- 
came servile  sycophants.  The  people 
ceased  to  respect  them.  The  church  had 
lost  its  power.  To  Germany  it  was  an 
immeasurable  loss. 

"In  France  I  found  good  evidence  of 
the  utter  depravity  of  the  German  sol- 
dier. God  knows  I  would  not  have 
thought  it  possible — the  raping,  the 
maiming  of  children,  the  daughters  of 
whole  communities  carried  into  bond- 
age. I  would  have  thought  that  the  de- 
cency common  among  dogs,  even,  in  a 
Christian  country,  these  days,  would 
have  shielded  the  helpless  from  such 
cruelty.  It  is  evident  that  the  officers 
gave  countenance  and  encouragement  to 
these  crimes,  or  they  could  not  have  been 
accomplished.  At  the  knowledge  of 
78 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

these  things,  a  cry  of  shame  for  their 
brothers  in  Germany  has  risen  from  the 
lips  of  all  civilized  men  the  world  over. 

"The  infamy  goes  back  to  the  men 
higher  up — to  Bill  Hohenzollern  and 
his  gang  of  pirates  and  highway- 
men. They  have  slain  the  soul  of  Ger- 
many. 

"I  am  told  by  men  who  have  lived 
there  that  in  certain  provinces  a  chaste 
woman  is  a  thing  unknown.  Let  us  hope 
this  exaggerates  the  truth.  As  to  that 
I  have  no  knowledge.  But  that  the 
land  of  the  Kaiser  has  lost  its  chivalry 
I  have  no  doubt  whatever.  The  loss  of 
chivalry  stands  for  the  loss  of  con- 
science— for  moral  degradation.  A 
man's  value  as  a  man  may  be  accurate- 
ly measured  by  his  respect  for  women. 
A  man  who  has  no  respect  for  women 
will  have  respect  for  your  rights  only 
because  he  has  to.  He  would  steal  your 
purse  if  he  dared.  He  is  rotten  to  the 
core.  Moreover,  unless  women  are  pure 
79 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

there  can  be  ho  purity  because  they 
have  the  tender  soul  of  childhood  in 
their  keeping. 

"We  ought  to  establish  a  moral  quar- 
antine here  and  save  ourselves  from  the 
peril  of  German  leprosy.  It  has  arrived. 
It  is  spreading.  You  will  find  its  symp- 
toms in  our  theaters,  now  largely  in  the 
hands  of  the  Germans. 

"I  have  traveled  much  these  late 
years  and  have  failed  to  find  an  Amer- 
ican city  in  which  there  was  not  one  or 
more  plays  or  moving  pictures  which 
reflected  the  morals  of  the  swine-yard. 
There  I  have  found  girls  and  boys  and 
children  who  are  to  make-  the  life  of 
America,  drinking  at  the  fountain  of 
pollution,  cleverly  designed  by  the  sex 
maniacs  who  live  in  the  white  lights  of 
Broadway.  On  every  sort  of  specious 
pretext — mostly  that  of  warning  the 
young — spaniel  youths  and  porcelain- 
faced  daughters  of  iniquity  are  paraded 
in  libidinous  enterprises.  The  cabarets 
80 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

and  brothels  of  New  York,  with,  their 
fist  fights  between  young  women,  their 
desperate,  bull-dog  encounters  between 
sex  maniacs,  their  ogling,  besotted  de- 
generates, sometimes  with  a  lame  pre- 
tense of  a  moral  and  sometimes  with- 
out it,  are  shown  for  the  entertainment 
of  young  America, 

"The  Huns  have  already  invaded 
America,  my  friend.  They  are  armed 
with  things  more  deadly  than  guns  and 
bullets.  Their  gun  is  the  camera,  their 
ammunition,  the  moving  picture.  That 
picture  penetrates  to  the  heart  and 
soul  of  the  young  and  no  surgery  can 
remove  it.  To  them,  seeing  is  believing. 

"A  man  is  mostly  the  sum  of  his  men> 
ories.  Think  back;  and  tell  me  what 
you  remember  of  your  childhood.  It's 
the  pictures  you  saw.  I  think  the  first 
thing  I  remember  is  the  picture  of  a 
cat  which  my  mother  drew  on  a  slate 
for  me — a  highly  benevolent  cat  it  was. 
The  one  I  have  remembered  best  is  that 
81 


KEEPING  UP  WITH 'WILLIAM 

of  my  mother  standing  in  the  morning 
sunlight  among  the  hollyhocks  by  the 
open  door  and  waving  her  handker- 
chief to  me  the  day  I  went  away  to 
school.  How  often  it  has  flashed  out  of 
my  memory  in  these  last  forty  years. 
There  is  no  power  like  that  of  a  picture 
for  good  or  evil  in  the  life  of  a  child. 
Pictures  are,  indeed,  the  universal  lan- 
guage of  childhood. 

"Now  what  is  there  in  this  special 
claim  of  the  sex  mongers  that  the  truth 
about  life — however  hideous  and  revolt- 
ing it  may  be — would  best  be  known  of 
all?  Just  this — it  should  be  made 
known  but  not  publicly  in  books  and 
theaters.  It  should  not  be  made  a 
familiar  thing — sitting  at  meat  and  ly- 
ing down  in  bed  with  the  sensitive  im- 
agination of  the  young.  That  will  be 
sure  to  make  it  the  one  great  truth  of 
life.  I  prefer  the  privacy  of  home  and 
the  loving  caution  of  a  mother,  taking 
care  to  impart  the  whole  truth  with  its 
82 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

setting  of  perils  and  with  no  glamour 
of  romance  about  it.  I  would  as  soon 
have  my  daughter's  feet  enter  a  brothel 
as  her  brain.  She  might  shake  the  dust 
from  her  feet. 

"What  were  the  fruits  of  this  home 
method  in  old  New  England?  I  would 
remind  these  European  Americans  who 
provide  our  amusements  for  us  that  the 
world  has  never  seen  a  civilization  like 
that  of  old  New  England.  I  am  not  sayr 
ing  that  it  had  no  faults,  but  its  human 
product  has  justly  excited  the  wonder 
and  admiration  of  the  world.  There 
was  not  much  of  it.  You  could  pick  up 
those  six  little  states  and  set  them  down 
within  the  boundaries  of  Minnesota  and 
have  19,200  square  miles  to  spare.  Yet 
they  gave  to  the  world  in  the  space  of 
forty  years,  men  of  the  stamp  of  Daniel 
Webster,  Silas  Wright,  Charles  Sumner, 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  William  M.  Ev- 
arts,  George  F.  -Edmunds,  James  G. 
Elaine,  E.  J.  Phelps,  Rufus  Choate, 
83 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Dr.  Charming, 
Lyman  Abbott,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Henry  W. 
Longfellow,  John  G.  Whittier,  James 
Russell  Lowell,  Edmund  C.  Stedman, 
the  Dwights,  the  Washburns, 

"Wouldn't  that  seem  to  be  doing  fair- 
ly well? 

"Now  the  fact  is,  men  and  women 
long  for  inspiration  to  a  nobler  life. 
There  are  those  who  will  tell  you  that 
the  crowds  who  go  to  hear  Billy  Sun- 
day, do  it  simply  to  be  amused.  It  is 
not  true.  It  is  a  deeper  thing.  They 
go,  driven  by  soul  hunger.  They  long 
for  wholesome  food  for  the  spirit.  They 
wish  to  be  stirred  to  nobler  action  and 
feel  the  inspiration  of  better  ideals. 
They  come  by  tens  of  thousands. 

"There  never  was  a  clean,  uplifting, 
noble  work  of  fiction  that  did  not  num- 
ber its  readers  by  the  million.  There 
never  was  a  strong  inspiring  play — like 
Peter  Pan  or  Shore  Acres — that  failed 
84 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAMT 

to  play  to  the  full  capacity  of  the  house 
in  which  it  was  presented  for  years. 

"Why  then,  ask  us  to  wallow  in  all 
uncleanness — in  the  swine-yard  of  hu- 
manity? 

"It  is  because  uncleanness  is  cheaper 
and  easier  to  get  and  is  sure  of  an  audi- 
ence equally  large  and  less  discrimi- 
nating; it  is  because  these  Huns  care 
only  for  their  own  pockets  and  not  a  fig 
for  the  public  good. 

"Now,  here  is  a  work  for  the  women 
of  America.  Here  is  a  battle  front  on 
which  they  can  fight  the  Huns.  Men 
can  help  and  will  help,  but  they  are 
busy  with  the  more  obvious  and  com- 
monplace problems.  This  is  a  job  of 
housecleaning.  It  is  primarily  a  wom- 
an's job — that  of  setting  in  order  the 
great  house  of  America  and  looking 
after  the  welfare  of  its  children.  There 
is  no  greater  work  to  be  done  than  that 
of  regenerating  the  theater.  They  can 
do  it  if  they  will." 

85 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHICH  IS  MOSTLY  FOR  THE   BOYS  OF  OUR 
ARMY 

The  Honorable  Socrates  Potter  hung 
up  the  old  rifle  and  washed  his  hands. 
There  was  a  very  gentle  look  in  his  eyes 
as  he  began  pacing  the  floor.  I  saw 
that  another  mood  was  coming. 

"We  must  learn  that  wealth  is  no  ex- 
cuse for  idleness  or  pride/'  he  went  on. 
"Every  one  must  find  his  work  and  do  it, 
or  come  to  grief — that  is  the  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter.  We  have  our 
European  Americans — our  Mislaid 
Consciences,  our  Leatherhead  Monarchs, 
our  Smothered  Sons,  our  Shrimpstones, 
our  Wedding  Tourists.  We  must  use 
the  slipper  with  a  firm  but  kindly  hand, 
and  remind  them  that  they  are  of  the 
Hohenzollern  breed  and  request  them  to 
fall  in  line  and  get  the  pace  and  spirit 
of  Democracy. 

86 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"With  all  our  faults  we  are,  in  the 
main,  sound  and  healthy.  Our  aver- 
age man  can  be  relied  upon.  He  is  our 
heart  and  sinew.  We  need  not  boast 
of  him.  He  is  willing  to  give  all  rather 
than  see  the  spirit  of  man  yield  an  inch 
of  the  progress  it  has  made.  That  is 
enough  to  say  of  him.  If  any  Euro- 
pean country  can  match  him,  we  are 
glad  and  he  is  glad — not  envious. 

"Our  average  man  would  enjoy  a 
drink  now  and  then,  but  in  many  of  our 
states  he  has  said :  'If  the  good  of  hu- 
manity demands  it,  let  there  be  prohi- 
bition— anyhow  we  will  give  it  a  trial.' 

"The  trouble  with  Russia  lies  in  the 
fact  that  among  its  people  there  are  no 
individuals — no  men  trained  in  the  use 
of  the  intellect  and  the  conscience.  Its 
people  are  like  bricks,  all  of  the  same 
shape,  size  and  color — all  two  inches 
wide  and  six  inches  long.  They  have  a 
common  denominator  of  material  and  a 
common  numerator  of  ignorance.  Be- 
87 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

tween  them  and  their  rulers  there  has 
been  no  average  man  to  speak  for  them, 
so  the  people  are  helpless.  They  know 
not  what  to  say  or  do.  They  have  been 
Kerenskyed  and  Trotskyfied  and  driven 
about  like  cattle. 

"The  Germans  have  an  average  man, 
but  he  has  suffered  himself  to  be  Wil- 
liamized.  His  conscience  has  been  mis- 
laid. 

"Since  1860  this  average  man  of  ours 
has  given  of  his  blood  and  substance  for 
the  ideals  of  Democracy  and  with  not 
the  remotest  hope  of  gain.  His  God  is 
the  father  of  the  whole  human  family 
— a  God  of  progress  whose  aim  is  not 
the  selfish  enjoyment  of  a  favored  few, 
but  the  welfare  of  all  men  the  world 
over.  His  aim  is,  in  short,  common 
sense — a  common  sense  of  honor  and 
decency  and  brotherhood  in  the  great 
family. 

"Again  we  fight  for  this  ideal — driv- 
en to  it  by  the  hateful  conduct  of  our 
brothers  in  Germany. 
88 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"I  wish  you  would  say  for  me  to  the 
folks  at  home  that  there  is  a  great  op- 
portunity in  this  big  common  purpose 
of  ours — an  opportunity  to  drop  all  out- 
worn and  unessential  differences  of 
creed  and  get  together.  Let  us  inaugu- 
rate the  Ismless  Sunday  and  cut  out  the 
waste — the  waste  of  rent  and  interest 
and  coal  and  light  and  energy.  Let  us 
cut  out  the  empty  seats  and  the  empty 
preachers  and  the  quarrelsome  brothers 
and  sisters  and  get  together  in  the  big- 
gest meeting-house  in  town  on  a  basis 
of  common  sense — the  common  sense  of 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man  with  Christ  as  the  great 
example.  Let  us  not  worry  and  quarrel 
as  to  whether  Christ  was  God  or  man. 
He  was  the  first  and  greatest  Democrat 
and  would  have  us  work  together  in 
peace  for  Democracy.  That  is  the  im- 
portant thing. 

"Tell  those  ladies  who  sit  around  the 
fireplace  knitting  sweaters  and  indulg- 
ing in  delicious  chills  of  pessimism,  to 
89 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

quit.  There  should  be  an  asylum  for 
the  misery  lovers  who  sit  in  snug  secur- 
ity and  dream  of  misfortunes — Zeppe- 
lin raids,  submarine  bombardments  and 
the  end  of  the  world.  They  grab  at 
every  straw  of  pessimism.  Nothing 
pleases  them  so  much  as  to  find  fault 
with  the  Government,  which  is  doing  its 
best  with  a  difficult  problem,  and 
mighty  well  at  that. 

"Tell  them  to  stop  shooting  at  the 
pianist.  He  is  the  only  one  we  have. 
All  faces  to  the  front!  The  spirit  of 
Democracy  is  confidence  in  the  justice 
and  the  success  of  its  cause.  Let  there 
be  no  discordant  voices  in  our  chorus. 

"That  reminds  me  of  the  story  of 

THE    CUFFING    OF    AlVN    MARIA. 

"In  the  town  of  my  birth  there  lived 
a  hen-pecked  farmer  of  the  name  of 
Amos  Swope.  He  was  a  peaceful  and 
contented  soul  without  any  good  excuse 
for  it.  His  wife,  Ann  Maria,  was  a 
90 


Since  1860  this  average  man  of  ours  has  given  of  hie  blood 

and  substance  for  the  ideals  of  Democracy  and  with  not  the 

remotest  hope  of  gain. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

scold  and  a  fault  finder.  She  had 
pecked  upon  Amos  for  years.  When 
she  got  tired  her  sister  came  and  helped 
her.  My  father  used  to  say  that  they 
reminded  him  of  Philo  Scott's  pet 
crane.  Philo  used  to  lead  him  around 
with  a  big  cork  stuck  on  the  end  of  his 
bill. 

"  *What  is  that  cork  on  his  bill  for?' 
my  father  asked. 

"  'So's  't  he  can't  peck/  said  Philo. 

"  'Can  he  peck?' 

'"Tolerable  severe,  an'  when  he  hits 
anything  he  calcallates  to  put  a  hole  in 
it,  an'  he  ain't  often  disapp'inted.  One 
day  my  dog,  Christmas,  tackled  him 
and  the  old  crane  fetched  Christmas  a 
peck  on  the  forward  an'  I  ain't  seen 
that  dog  since.  He's  just  naturally 
mean  an'  he  ain't  never  learnt  how  to 
control  himself.' 

"So  it  was  with  Ann  Maria  and  her 
sister.  But  Amos  used  to  sit  as  quiet 
and  unconcerned  as  an  old  tree  with  a 
91 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

pair  of  wood-peckers  knockin'  away  at 
it.  He  never  pecked  back  but  once. 

"They  had  gone  up  to  the  St.  Law- 
rence to  camp  out  an*  fish  for  a  week 
or  so — Amos  and  his  boy,  Bill,  and  Ann 
Maria  and  her  sister.  One  day  when 
they  were  landing  a  big  fish  they  got 
into  the  stiff  current  above  the  Long 
Sault.  Something  had  to  be  done  right 
away.  Amos  dropped  his  tackle  and 
began  pulling  on  the  oars.  Bill  went 
to  work  with  his  paddle.  The  women 
began  to  complain  an*  move  around  and 
rock  the  boat.  They  knew  they  were 
going  to  be  drowned.  They  insisted 
upon  it  with  loud  cries.  Amos,  in  the 
midst  of  heroic  efforts,  tried  to  quiet 
them.  They  continued  to  cry  out  and 
when  the  boat  shipped  water  they 
dodged.  It  was  a  bad  situation. 

"Amos  fetched  Ann  Maria  a  cuff  and 
told  her  to  dry  up  an*  sit  still.  The 
women  obeyed  him.  When  they  were 
out  of  danger  he  said: 

"'It  ain't  fair  to  expect  a  man  to 
92 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

rassle  with  a  strong  current  an'  run  an 
insane  asylum  all  in  the  same  minute. 
If  ye  can't  help,  don't  hinder.  You  two 
have  been  rockin*  the  boat  for  years 
an*  I  guess  it's  about  time  ye  quit/ 

"People  used  to  say  that  Ann  Maria 
turned  over  a  new  leaf  and  behaved  her- 
self proper  after  that. 

"There's  some  folks  that  are  pecking 
at  the  country  these  days.  We're  in  the 
current  of  the  Long  Sault  and  Uncle 
Sam  has  the  oars.  We  should  remem- 
ber that  if  we  can't  help  we  mustn't 
hinder.  We  can  help  William  a  lot  by 
just  yelling  and  rocking  the  boat. 

"I  wish  you  would  say  to  the  boys  in 
camp  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  that  I 
should  like  to  go  and  share  their  work 
and  perils.  Last  autumn  I  crossed  the 
French  and  British  lines  where  hostile 
shells  were  bursting — sometimes  uncom- 
fortably near  me — and  went  within 
ninety  feet  of  the  German  trenches.  I 
have  tried  the  perils  which  our  boys 
93 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

will  have  to  suffer,  but,  unfortunately, 
I  am  too  old  to  fight  with  them. 

"It  is  a  great  privilege  they  enjoy — • 
that  of  going  out  to  battle  for  honor  and 
decency  and  the  good  of  the  world. 
They  have  entered  the  great  university 
of  common  sense.  There  is  no  other 
like  it.  What  a  school  is  that  comrade- 
ship of  the  camp  and  the  trenches !  For 
the  first  time  in  history  the  whole  civ- 
ilized world  stands  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der." 

"Do  you  think  our  boys  are  likely  to 
profit  by  their  experience?"  I  asked. 

"It  all  depends  on  the  boy. 

"Let  me  tell  you  a  story  just  as  I 
heard  it  from  the  lips  of  an  American 
soldier  lad.  I  would  call  it : 

TEE    ALL,    HE    LIFE. 

"He  was  a  big,    broad    shouldered, 

brawny  man  with  a  rugged  manner  of 

speech.    He  described  himself  very  well 

when  he  said  to  me:     'I  can  think  as 

94 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

pure  white  as  anybody  but  I  want  to 
talk  like  a  he  man.' 

"He  had  been  wounded  by  a  burst  of 
shrapnel  and  was  not  badly  hurt,  al- 
though one  side  of  his  face  looked  as 
if  it  had  been  raked  by  the  claws  of  a 
leopard.  He  had  told  me  that  for  a  day 
after  the  accident  he  had  heard  a  sound 
in  his  head  'like  two  skeletons  rassling 
on  a  tin  roof.' 

"Who  but  an  American  soldier  in 
France  would  talk  like  that?  Indeed 
I  found  that  he  was  from  Kansas  City 
and  had  the  mixed  dialect  of  the  mid- 
country. 

"  'Do  you  think  it  makes  ye  better  or 
worse — this  game  of  war?'  I  asked. 

"  'Well,  sir,  I'd  say  better/  he  an- 
swered. 'Ye  get  things  measured  up 
right,  over  here.  Ye  learn  how  to  use 
yer  thinker.  Nobody  knows  what  peace 
and  home  and  friends  are  worth  'til 
they're  gone  and  ye  don't  know  whether 
you're  ever  going  to  see  'em  again  or; 
95 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

not.  It  ain't  a  bad  thing  to  live  the  all 
he  life  a  while  and  see  the  family  in 
dreams.  They  look  so  gol  durnably 
different.  I  reckon  it's  helped  me. 
Maybe  I  better  tell  ye  a  little  story 
and  you'll  see  what  I  mean.  It'll  be 
a  Christmas  story. 

"  'We  were  in  the  ruined  city  of 
Peronne  that  Christmas  Day.  My 
friend  and  I  were  homesick  and  had 
tramped  across  country  from  the  camp 
of  our  engineering  corps  to  send  a  mes- 
sage to  our  wives  in  Kansas  City,  and 
to  blow  ourselves  to  a  good  dinner  with 
a  bottle  of  wine  and  cigars  if  money 
could  buy  'em.  We  were  a  little  over 
beaned  and  tea ! — gosh !  we  were  soaked 
in  it,  and  that  French  tobacco  reminded 
me  of  my  father's  cure  for  the  epizootic. 
We  had  been  gander-dancing  on  a  new 
railroad  for  weeks.  We  were  shovel 
tired  and  kind  o'  man  weary.  By  thun- 
der! we  hadn't  seen  a  woman  in  three 
months. 

96 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"'You  who  see  women  every  day; 
don't  realize  that  they're  a  pretty  neces- 
sary part  of  the  scenery.  Oh,  you  don't 
miss  'em  for  a  week  or  so,  but  by  and 
by  you  begin  to  find  out  there's  some- 
thing wrong.  Things  don't  look  right. 
The  hole  in  the  doughnut  is  too  big. 
You'd  be  kind  o*  glad  to  hear  what 
somebody  said  at  the  Woman's  Club, 
and  all  about  Betsey  Baker's  new  pink 
silk,  and  how  shabby  that  one  old  dress 
of  your  wife's  was  getting  to  be.  You'd 
like  to  see  a  set  o'  skirts  come  along — 
I  guess.  It  would  kind  o'  comfort  you. 
If  you  didn't  have  pretty  good  self- 
control  you'd  get  up  and  wave  your  hat 
and  holler. 

"  'Then  —  children  —  that's  another 
thing  you  miss.  We  don't  see  'em  on 
the  battle  front — ne'er  a  one!  What 
a  hole  they  make  in  the  world  when  you 
take  'em  out  of  it ! — especially  if  you've 
got  some  of  your  own.  They  come  to 
me  in  my  dreams — the  wife  and  babies! 
97 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

I'll  bet  ye  there's  more'n  a  thousand  of 
'em  crowding  into  that  big  camp  every 
night,  about  dream-time,  and  looking 
for  theirs. 

"  'Oh,  I  wouldn't  have  ye  get  the  idea 
that  we  set  and  sob  and  talk  mush  and 
look  sorrowful  there.  If  you  just 
grabbed  a  look  at  us  and  went  on  you'd 
say  we  were  no  Hamlets.  Gosh,  no! 
We  play  cards  and  joke  and  laugh  and 
tell  stories  a  plenty.  You  wouldn't  get 
what's  down  under  it  all  unless  some 
feller  kind  o'  confessed  and  turned 
state's  evidence.  No,  sir — I  don't  be- 
lieve you  would. 

"  'I'm  just  telling  ye  enough  to  make 
ye  understand  why  we  went  out  to 
Peronne  that  Christmas  Day  and  what 
happened  to  us  there.  I  speak  French 
pretty  glib — that's  another  reason  why 
we  went.  My  mother  was  a  Louisiana 
French  woman.  I  got  it  from  her  when 
I  was  a  little  chap — never  forgot  it — 
and  I  bossed  a  gang  of  Frenchmen  for 
two  years. 

98 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"  'We  found  a  man  who  ran  a  little 
grocery  shop  and  restaurant  down  in 
one  of  the  old  cellars.  He  had  had  a 
fine  big  cafe  up-stairs  before  the  Ger- 
man army  swatted  the  town  with  dyna- 
mite. He  was  a  sad  little  man  who 
lived  down  there  in  the  lamplight  with 
his  wife.  The  Huns  had  carried  their 
two  daughters  away  with  them.  He 
had  cleaned  the  litter  out  of  his  cellars 
and  repaired  their  walls  and  so  they 
had  a  home  and  something  to  do. 

"  'I  asked  him  if  he  could  get  up  a 
good  dinner  for  us. 

" '  "Oui,  Monsieur,"  he  answered 
promptly.  "I  can  get  you  a  fine  duck 
and  celery  and  preserved  strawberries, 
and  I  could  make  a  little  pastry." 

" '  "How  much  for  the  dinner?" 

" '  "Thirty  francs — I  can  not  make  it 
less." 

"  *  "Make  it  forty  and  we'll  call  it  a 
bargain,"  I  urged. 

"  'You  should  have  seen  the  smile  on 
his  face  then. 

99 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

" '  "Les  Americans !  They  always  talk 
like  that — God  be  with  them !"  he  said. 
"Trust  me,  Monsieur.  I  will  make  you 
happy." 

"  'Dinner  would  be  ready  in  two  hours 
and  we  went  out  for  a  walk  and  a  look 
at  the  waste  of  ruins.  It  seemed  as  if 
there  were  miles  of  them — honestly! 
You  see  they  loaded  every  basement 
with  dynamite  and  wired  the  whole 
place  and  then  touched  the  button. 
Down  it  came.  There  isn't  a  roof  stand- 
ing. We  tramped  about  looking  for 
relics.  It  was  a  pretty  day  and  warm 
in  the  sunlight. 

"  'Suddenly  a  woman,  dressed  in 
black,  with  a  little  girl  about  six  years 
old — spick  and  span  and  pretty  as  a  pic- 
ture— came  along.  They  looked  like 
angels  to  us.  Didn't  seem  so  they  was 
exactly  human.  We  stood  watching  'em. 

"  'I  reckon  I'd  have  give  about  a  year 
o'  my  life  for  a  day's  use  o'  that  kid — 
honestly.  I'd  just  like  to  have  got  down 
100 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

on  the  ground  and  rolled  and  hollered 
and  tickled  and  tossed  her  just  as  I 
used  to  play  with  my  own  kids.  My 
hands  itched  to  get  hold  of  her.  We 
followed  along  behind  'em  kind  o' 
hankerin'  and  a  wishin'.  She  was  a 
pretty  little  thing  as  ye  ever  looked  at, 
with  curly  hair  hanging  down,  on  her 
shoulders  and  shiny,  silver  buckled  slip- 
pers and  white  stockin's.  I  just  wanted 
to  frame  up  some  kind  of  excuse  to 
speak  to  'em,  but  I  suppose  they 
wouldn't  have  understood  me. 

"  They  stopped  and  looked  around  a 
minute  and  then  the  woman  opened  an 
iron  gate  and  they  went  into  one  of 
the  old  dooryards.  When  we  came 
along  we  saw  that  the  woman  was  sit- 
ting amongst  the  rubbish  and  crying. 

"'"It's  her  home — dummed  if  it 
ain't,"  I  whispered. 

"  'I  reckon  'twas  natural  for  'em  to 
come  back  to  it  on  Christmas  Day — 
plumb  natural  to  come  back  to  where 
101 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

they  had  been  happy  once  with  all  the 
family  around.  What  a  place!  You'd 
think  that  an  earthquake  and  a  cyclone 
had  gone  into  partnership  for  about  a 
minute  and  done  a  smashing  business. 
About  half  the  back  wall  was  standing 
and  there  hung  a  little  corner  of  the 
attic  floor  and  the  wind  had  blown  the 
dirt  up  there  and  some  flowers  and 
grass  all  withered  by  the  cold  had 
sprung  up  in  it,  and  beyond  that  was 
an  old  baby  carriage  with  a  ragged  top 
and  a  spinning-wheel. 

"  'The  little  girl  didn't  seem  to  notice 
her  mother.  She  was  running  around 
on  the  ruins  and  picking  up  broken 
dishes.  I  reckon  that  kid  had  got  used 
to  the  crying  of  men  and  women.  The 
sight  of  grief  didn't  worry  her  any 
more — not  a  bit  She  was  flying  around 
like  a  bird  on  the  ruins. 

"  *We  sat  down  behind  some  bushes 
by  the  iron  fence  just  to  see  what  hap- 
pened. 

"  'By  and  by  I  heard  the  little  girl  call 
102 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

in  a  voice  that  kind  o*  made  me  swaller 
— honest  it  was  as  sweet  as  the  first 
bird  song  in  the  spring. 

" '  "Mother !    Mother !"  she  called. 

"'"What  is  it— little  one!"  the 
mother  answered. 

" « "Dinner's  ready/' 

"  Talk  about  silver  bells !  Say,  mister, 
never  again!  Honest  I  never  heard  S, 
sound  like  the  voice  of  that  kid.  It 
kind  o'  floored  me — sure  thing!  Up 
there  at  the  front  we  just  hear  the 
growling  of  cannon  and  the  whinnying 
of  horses  and  the  swearing  of  men  day 
and  night.  Maybe  that's  why  the  kid's 
voice  took  hold  of  us  that  way.  I  don't 
know.  After  I  had  heard  it  I  felt  as 
if  I  could  walk  to  Kansas  City.  Honest 
Injun ! 

"  *We  peeked  through  the  bushes  and 
saw  that  the  little  girl  had  dragged  a 
board  between  her  and  her  mother  and 
covered  it  with  broken  dishes.  Then 
she  began  to  chitter-chatter. 

" '  "Here's  some  lovely  soup  and 
103 


there's  a  fine  goose  and  a  great  bowl  full 
of  the  best  jelly  that  ever  was  and  pota- 
toes and  celery  and  spinach  and  every- 
thing that  you  like,  mother.  It's  a 
Christmas  dinner  you  know.  Papa  will 
sit  here  and  Henri  will  sit  there  and  we 
are  going  to  have  the  grandest  time." 

"  'So  the  little  chatter-box  went  on — 
good  deal  like  a  fine  lady — and  her 
mother  said: 

"'"Papa!  Henri!  They  are  not  here ! 
They  will  eat  no  more  with  us." 
"'"Why?" 

" '  "Mort  pour  la  patrie — both  of 
them !  my  child !" 

" '  "No,  mother,  they  are  here.  I  can 
see  them  just  as  plain!  Come,  mother, 
they  are  waiting !" 

"'Oh,  by  thunder!  If  I  only  had  a 
mind  like  that  I  said  to  myself — a  mind 
that  hadn't  got  so  kind  of  stiff  and  sore 
and  muscle  bound — a  mind  that  was  so 
clean  and  supple  and  that  hadn't  for- 
gotten how  to  believe  in  the  things  I 
104 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

do  not  see.  Or  do  ye  suppose  that  the 
clear  eyes  of  a  kid  can  really  see  things 
that  we  can't? 

" '  "God  bless  you — my  little  saviour! 
You  know  how  to  make  me  happy — 
don't  ye?"  said  the  mother  with  her 
handkerchief  at  her  eyes. 

"  'Then  they  both  sat  down  there  and 
began  to  eat  that  ghostly  dinner  with 
the  ghosts  of  the  dead. 

"  'Gosh  all  hemlock!  I  just  shut  my 
eyes  and  heard  a  sound  like  a  wind 
blowing  in  my  head.  I  turned  and  whis- 
pered to  my  pal. 

" '  "You  stay  here.  I'll  be  back  right 
away." 

"  'Then  I  sloped  on  my  tiptoes.  Went 
to  the  cellar  and  found  that  man  and 
brought  him  with  me.  I  told  him  to 
invite  them  to  dinner  and  that  I  would 
pay  for  it  I  didn't  care  if  it  took  the 
last  sous  marquee  in  my  breeches. 

"When  we  got  back  they  were  botK 
singing  The  Marseillaise,  that  my; 
105 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

mother  taught  me  when  I  was  a  kid, 
as  they  sat  at  their  Christmas  dinner: 

Amour  sacre  de  la  patrie 
Conduis  soutiens  nos  bras  vengeurs 
Liberte  Liberte  cherie, 
Combats  avec  tes  defenseurs! 

"  They  heard  us  coming  and  stopped. 
Can  ye  beat  it?  Say,  mister,  the  boches 
might  as  well  try  to  conquer  the  birds 
of  the  air. 

"  'The  man  knew  them.  They  had 
been  well  off  and  respectable  folks  in 
Peronne  before  the  war.  Now  they 
were  refugees  living  on  charity  in  a  dis- 
tant village. 

"  'We  gave  them  a  part  of  our  dinner 
but  I  do  not  think  they  were  as  happy 
in  the  cellar  as  they  had  been  with  the 
ghosts.  They  were  very  glum  but  we 
— well,  ye  know,  sir,  I  reckon  they 
helped  our  Christmas  a  lot.  You  bet  I 
do. 

106 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"  *Ye  know  I  had  him  put  three  extra 
plates  at  our  table — one  for  Mary  and 
one  for  little  Kate  and  one  for  my  rogu- 
ish boy  Bill.  Say,  I  had  learned  some- 
thing from  that  kid — you  bet.  It  isn't 
necessary  for  me  to  fall  asleep  to  have 
'em  with  me  now. 

"'The  eats!  Say,  Fred  Harvey 
wouldn't  be  deuce  high  with  that  little 
Frenchman. 

"  'We  had  some  dinner,  don't  you 
doubt  it,  my  friend,  and  forgot  that 
there  was  a  war. 

"  'And  ye  know  the  funny  part  of  it 
is  this:  Mary  wrote  me  of  her  dream 
that  she  and  the  kids  had  dinner  with 
me  on  Christmas  Day.' 

"I  have  told  you  this  story  because  it 
gives  you  a  day  in  the  life  of  an  Ameri- 
can soldier,  with  its  psychological  back- 
ground and  a  glimpse  of  the  fatherless 
children.  If  you  were  one  of  the  boys 
in  khaki  I  would  remind  you  that,  after 
107 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

all,  there  is  only  one  great  thing  in  the 
world — man.  What  an  extension  of  hu- 
man sympathy  and  understanding  is 
coming  to  you,  my  bright  young  soldier 
lad !  As  it  comes  it  will  go  out  in  some 
measure  to  the  duller  fellows  who  share 
your  thought  and  meat  and  perils. 

"You  will  have  a  wiser  brain,  a  no- 
bler spirit  and  a  stronger  body.  This 
digging  and  marching  and  sweating  in 
the  open  is  the  best  thing  that  can  hap- 
pen to  you.  I  often  thought  that  no 
wiser  thing  could  be  done  for  our  col- 
lege boys  than  mobilize  them  every 
summer  and  send  them  to  camp  in  the 
wheat-fields  for  two  or  three  months  of 
hard  work. 

"What's  the  matter  with  an  army  of 
peace,  with  its  companies,  regiments 
and  divisions,  doing,  under  military  dis- 
cipline, constructive  instead  of  destruc- 
tive work — doing  the  things  that  need 
most  to  be  done,  getting  in  the  harvests 
or  building  roads?  It  might  give  a  part 
108 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

of  its  time  each  day  to  military  train- 
ing, especially  to  rifle  practise.  It 
would  be  a  school  of  Democracy.  Its 
best  product  would  be  spirit,  its  next 
best  brawn,  and  last  of  all  the  work 
done. 

"You  will  encounter  perils  in  France, 
my  brave  lad,  and  the  least  of  them 
will  be  those  of  the  battle-field.  It  is 
when  you  go  to  Paris  on  leave  that  I 
would  have  you  look  out  for  yourself. 

"I'm  not  much  of  a  preacher.  I  am 
not  so  foolish  as  to  think  that  all  wis- 
dom is  in  the  Bible.  To  speak  honest- 
ly, I  am  inclined  to  think  that  there 
are  many  things  in  the  Bible  which 
oughtn't  to  be  there.  The  Kaiser  seems 
to  me  to  be  imitating  the  sanctified 
slayers  of  the  Old  Testament.  You  will 
find  chapters  there  which  read  like  a 
report  of  the  German  General  Staff  after 
a  successful  drive.  It  is  there  that 
crazy  Bill  finds  his  warrant  for  disem- 
boweling so  many  people  and  mistreat- 
109 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

ing  his  prisoners.  That  kind  of  history 
should  be  summarily  deprived  of  the 
odor  of  sanctity,  in  my  humble  opinion. 

"But  there  is  one  sentence  of  Scrip- 
ture that  I  would  have  you  remember 
— my  brave,  fine  fellows  who  are  to 
fight  under  this  flag  of  ours.  Having 
lived  some  fifty  years  and  been  a  some- 
what careful  observer,  I  would  call  it 
the  most  impressive  sentence  ever  writ- 
ten. It  is  full  of  vital  truth.  Every 
young  man  ought  to  read  it  once  a  day 
and  think  of  it  as  often  as  he  is  tempted. 
It  is  from  the  book  of  Job  and  it  says: 

"  'His  bones  are  full  of  the  sin  of  his 
youth,  which  shall  lie  down  with  him  in 
the  dust.' 

"Think  it  over,  boys.  Think  of  that 
word  'bones'  which  indicates  how  deep- 
ly it  lays  hold  of  you,  and  of  the  clause 
'which  shall  lie  down  with  him  in  the 
dust/  which  indicates  that  only  death 
can  break  its  hold. 

"Don't  let  the  optimistic  young  doc- 
110 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

tors  fool  you.  It  is  a  serious  matter. 
You  can  get  along  with  the  mud  and 
vermin  of  the  trenches.  They  will  only 
afflict  the  outside  of  you.  The  main 
thing  is  to  keep  clean  inside.  Don't 
allow  your  life  currents  to  be  polluted. 
See  that  you  bring  back  to  your  home  a 
clean  body. 

"You  will  do  this,  unless,  when  you 
go  to  Paris  or  to  some  other  city,  on 
leave,  you  fall  for  that  French  wine 
and  lose  your  head  in  the  process.  Let 
it  alone,  I  beg  of  you,  and  remember 
that  your  greatest  peril  is  not  on  the 
battle-field. 

"Do  not  for  a  moment  lose  faith  in 
the  issue.  "The  cause  of  Liberty  be- 
queathed from  sire  to  son,  though  baf- 
fled oft  is  ever  won/ 

"I  have  seen  how  eagerly,  how  cheer- 
fully the  young  men  at  the  front  give 
their  lives  for  something  greater  than 
they.  It  has  filled  me  with  wonder. 

"I  have  a  little  farm  out  here  on  the 
111 


KEEPING  UP  WITH   WILLIAM 

hills.  It  has  helped  me  to  understand 
the  world  I  live  in  and  especially  these 
boys.  How  often  I  have  seen  the  winds 
of  autumn  strip  the  grove  and  garden 
of  their  loveliness  until  nothing  was 
left  but  dead  stalks  and  bare  branches. 
The  captains  and  the  kings  had  depart- 
ed. I  have  seen  them  returning — the 
delicate  green  of  the  new  leaves  in 
spring,  the  grass,  the  violets,  and  here 
are  the  familiar  sprouts  of  the  poison 
ivy.  I  thought  that  I  had  torn  the  last 
of  it  out  of  the  ground  last  summer, 
but  here  it  is. 

"Everything  passes  away  but  it  re- 
turns, and  the  noxious  ivy  is  the  most 
persistent  returner  of  all.  I  am  busy 
lighting  it  every  spring  and  summer. 

"So  it  is  with  this  world  of  men. 
Caesar  dies,  despotism  is  uprooted,  as 
we  thought,  and  we  discover  that  they 
have  returned  and  are  busy  growing 
and  spreading  their  roots.  Everything 
112 


Do  you  tell  me  that  Jesus  Christ  will  return?    Nay,  I  tell  you 
that  He  has  already  returned.     He   is   in  the  camps  and 
the  battle-fields  of  France  and  Belgium.     He  is  in  the  hearts 
of  the  young  men  who  are  dying  as  He  died  to  make  men  free. 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

returns  if  you  give  it  a  chance.  Herod 
has  returned  and  is  slaying  the  male 
children.  Pilate  has  returned  and  is 
sitting  in  judgment. 

"Do  you  tell  me  that  Jesus  Christ  will 
return?  Nay,  I  tell  you  He  has  already 
returned.  He  is  in  the  camps  and  on 
the  battle-fields  of  France  and  Belgium. 
He  is  in  the  hearts  of  the  young  men 
who  are  dying  as  He  died  to  make  men 
free. 

"So,  my  young  soldier  lads  of  Great 
Britain,  France,  Italy  and  the  United 
States,  I  take  off  my  hat  and  bare  my 
gray  head  when  you  march  by  me,  for 
I  know  why  you  are  so  brave." 

It  was  near  midnight  when  the 
country  lawyer  and  I  left  his  office  and 
headed  up  the  main  street  of  the  village 
toward  his  home.  After  a  moment  of 
silence  we  reached  the  public  square 
and  then  he  directed  my  eyes  toward  the 
glowing  lamp  of  Jupiter  in  the  sky. 
113 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

"When  you  get  to  wondering  at  God's 
neglect  of  His  duty,  it's  a  good  idea  to 
go  out  and  take  a  look  at  the  stars  rid- 
ing up  there  in  the  sunlight,"  he  said. 
"I  guess  this  little  world  of  ours  has 
got  to  take  care  of  itself.  Kind  o'  looks 
to  me  as  if  God  had  enough  of  His  own 
work  to  do,  especially  when  so  many 
of  us  are  loafing.  I  don't  see  how  we 
can  complain  if  we  do  have  to  'tend  to 
our  own  business.  We've  been  depend- 
ing a  long  time  on  prayer  an'  indolence 
an*  good  luck  while  we  let  the  weeds 
grow  in  the  garden.  I  rather  guess 
we'll  have  to  do  our  own  hoein*.  Every 
man  to  his  hoe !  And  let's  take  care  that 
the  weeds  don't  get  too  far  ahead  of 
us  again. 

"If  this  planet  is  to  be  a  safe  and 
decent  place  to  live  upon,  there  should 
be  an  International  School  Commission 
agreed  as  to  one  main  purpose — that  of 
cultivating  good  will  between  the  races 
which  inhabit  it.  Of  course,  no  power 
114 


KEEPING  UP  WITH  WILLIAM 

could  remove  all  the  lies  from  history, 
but  I  hope  that  the  lies  and  also  the 
truth  of  it  could  be  so  put  as  to  rob 
them  of  the  seed  of  bitterness,  even 
against  the  Germans." 


THE  END 


A     000  657  049     3 


